Untitled (inuzuka-taisui)

An untitled shin-hanga woodblock print attributed to Inuzuka Taisui, this work adds to the artist's catalog of kacho-e subjects. The shin-hanga movement's kacho-e output represented a conscious effort to modernize a genre that had deep historical precedent in Japanese art. By the early twentieth century, flower-and-bird painting had been practiced in Japan for over a millennium, absorbing influences from Chinese academic painting, Rimpa decorative traditions, and the naturalist observation promoted by Maruyama Okyo's school. Shin-hanga artists like Taisui inherited all of these traditions but filtered them through the specific requirements of the woodblock print medium, which imposed its own constraints on line quality, color mixing, and tonal range.