$500–$5,000. Common mountain prints: $500–$1,500. Key value factors: Azechi's cheerful mountain prints have consistent demand. Larger and more complex compositions are most valued.
The cicada—semi, whose summer shrilling in Japanese forest and garden is one of the most culturally resonant sounds in Japanese nature experience—appears in Azechi's print with the bold simplification he brought to all natural subjects. The cicada's large body, its veined transparent wings, its short lived but immensely vocal summer existence, made it a natural subject for his graphic sensibility: a form that was already almost an abstraction, an insect built from clear geometric components that his woodblock carving could render with clean directness.
1944 (printed c. 1950 from recut block?)
Color woodblock print; oban
1944 (printed c. 1950 from recut block?)
Color woodblock print; oban
1945
Color woodblock print
1961
Color woodblock print; edition 10/100
Curated cross-cuts that include this print.
Cicada was created by Umetaro Azechi (畦地梅太郎).
Cicada depicts insects.
