Awazu, from the series Eight Views of Lake Biwa (ōmi hakkei)
by Ito Shinsui
- Series:
- Eight Views of Lake Biwa
- Date:
- 1917
- Medium:
- Woodblock print; ink and color on paper
- Source:
- Art Institute of Chicago
by Ito Shinsui
Awazu, from the series Eight Views of Lake Biwa (Omi hakkei), is a 1917 woodblock print by Ito Shinsui in the collection of the Art Institute of Chicago. The Awazu view corresponds to the classical conceit of returning sails, the moment when fishing boats on Lake Biwa came home at dusk along the shoreline near Otsu. Shinsui's design strips the scene to elemental components: a band of water, a band of distant land, a sky tuned through soft bokashi gradation, and the small graphic accents of sails or boats placed for rhythmic interest. This pared-back approach was central to the shin-hanga movement's reinvention of the Eight Views theme, in which publisher Watanabe Shozaburo and his collaborating artists sought to give a long-standing poetic subject a contemporary visual register without abandoning the woodblock craft. Although Ito Shinsui's reputation outside Japan rests largely on bijin-ga, the portraits of beautiful women that he produced steadily from 1916 onward, the Omi series shows him exercising the landscape side of the same shin-hanga sensibility, where mood, weather, and the controlled flatness of color fields all matter more than incident. The Awazu print is best read in dialogue with the other seven views in the set, and the Art Institute of Chicago preserves multiple sheets from the series. Source: Art Institute of Chicago, artwork no. 34670.
November 1939
Color woodblock print; oban
October 1939
Color woodblock print
September 1939
Color woodblock print
1939
Color woodblock print
Curated cross-cuts that include this print.
Awazu, from the series Eight Views of Lake Biwa (ōmi hakkei) was created by Ito Shinsui (伊東深水) in 1917.
Yes — Awazu, from the series Eight Views of Lake Biwa (ōmi hakkei) is part of the Eight Views of Lake Biwa series by Ito Shinsui.
Awazu, from the series Eight Views of Lake Biwa (ōmi hakkei) depicts eight views (hakkei).
