Night view of Hong Kong
- Medium:
- Woodblock print
- Edition:
- Self-printed
- Source:
- Art of Japan
$500–$4,000. Snow and night scenes tend to command premium prices for this artist. Key value factors: As an early sosaku-hanga champion, Nagase's prints have historical significance. Bold, expressive woodcuts are most valued.
Hong Kong's harbor and hillside cityscape, illuminated after dark, provide a spectacular subject for this woodblock print. The city's famous night view, with towers of light climbing Victoria Peak and reflecting across the harbor waters, challenged Nagase to translate electric brilliance into the woodblock medium's vocabulary of carved line and layered pigment. Night scenes in woodblock printing have a distinguished history, from Hiroshige's moonlit Edo to Hasui's lamp-lit streets, and Nagase extends this tradition to a foreign metropolis. The vertical stacking of Hong Kong's architecture, climbing steep terrain, creates a wall of light that the dark harbor water doubles through reflection, giving the composition a visual density that fills the print from edge to edge.
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.
Night view of Hong Kong was created by Nagase Yoshio (永瀬義郎).
Night view of Hong Kong depicts landscapes and night scenes.
