Hikaru umi (The Sparkling Sea)

Date:: 1926
Medium:: Woodcut, color print
Format:: Oban
Publisher:: Yoshida Studio
Source:: Library of Congress

Typical Price

This 1920s print from the heart of Yoshida's jizuri period represents his mature shin-hanga technique. Standard jizuri prints of Japanese landscapes cluster around $2,149 (1stDibs dealer benchmark). The jizuri seal — indicating Yoshida personally supervised printing — is the single most important value driver, typically doubling the price over non-jizuri lifetime impressions.

Jizuri (artist-supervised) seal: $1,500–$4,000
Studio edition (no jizuri): $800–$2,000
Posthumous/family workshop reprint: $300–$800

Description

"Hikaru umi" — the sparkling sea — is one of Yoshida's most purely lyrical titles, the Japanese phrase evoking the particular brilliance of sunlight scattering across open water. This 1926 woodcut (an alternative medium designation to woodblock print) captures the sea's surface in full midday light, the myriad reflections rendered through careful [bokashi](/glossary/bokashi) gradation and precise color layering. The work demonstrates Yoshida's ability to make light itself — transient, atmospheric, impossible to hold — the primary subject of a technically demanding print.