Daybreak
by Ito Shinsui
- Date:
- 1937
- Medium:
- Woodblock print, ink and color on paper
- Format:
- Oban
- Dimensions:
- 27 × 40.2 cm
- Publisher:
by Ito Shinsui
Shinsui's extensive oeuvre spans bijin-ga, landscapes, and genre subjects. Auction averages over 12 months reflect healthy collector demand across all subject types.
The transition from night to dawn is the subject of this 1937 landscape, which captures the particular quality of light at daybreak when darkness has retreated but full color has not yet arrived. Shinsui's use of graduated [bokashi](/glossary/bokashi) printing, moving from deep indigo at the horizon through pale gold to an open sky, creates an atmosphere of suspended stillness. The composition belongs to the mature phase of his landscape work in the late 1930s, when he turned repeatedly to the poetic potentiality of transitional light.
Wakasa Kugushiko
1920
Color woodblock print; oban
Woodblock print
1934
Color woodblock print; oban
n.d.
Woodblock print; ishizuri-e, section of harimaze sheet
Curated cross-cuts that include this print.
Daybreak was created by Ito Shinsui (伊東深水) in 1937.
Daybreak uses Bokashi, on woodblock print, ink and color on paper.
Daybreak was published by Watanabe Shozaburo (1937).
Daybreak depicts landscapes.
Daybreak measures 27 × 40.2 cm (Oban format).
