Hanga
Windswept seashore at Kôtsuke by Kihei Sasajima — Japanese Mokuhanga (Japanese woodblock)

Windswept seashore at Kôtsuke

by Kihei Sasajima

Medium:
Mokuhanga (Japanese woodblock)
Image courtesy of
Saru Gallery

Description

A coastal view treated under conditions of weather and motion, the title indicating a moment of wind rather than a static scene. Sasajima's carving language, developed through years of cutting Buddhist temple blocks, translates sea and shore into bold dark masses — likely rocks or breakers rendered as solid planes against fields of paler ink or reserved paper. Bokashi gradation suits such a subject, allowing the transition between sky and sea to register as a band of modulated tone. Sasajima followed sosaku-hanga principles throughout his career, designing, carving, and baren-printing every impression himself on washi. His teacher Onchi Koshiro had championed this self-sufficient method as essential to creative printmaking, distinguishing the artist-printmaker from the Edo-period workshop artisan whose role was confined to a single stage of production. The seashore subject extends Sasajima's landscape practice beyond his more usual concerns — Buddhist architecture and inland scenes — to the coastal periphery, treated with the same sculptural weight he brought to mountain temples and forest paths.

More Prints by Kihei Sasajima

Featured in Collections

Curated cross-cuts that include this print.

Frequently Asked Questions

Windswept seashore at Kôtsuke was created by Kihei Sasajima (笹島喜平).