The greatest Japanese painter you’ve never heard of
Hasui Kawase was an influential 20th century Japanese landscape painter. Born in 1883, Kawase travelled extensively throughout Japan and produced hundreds of woodblock prints of cities and the countryside. In particular, he’s famous for his paintings of snow and rain. His art also often includes recognizable features of the Japanese landscape, like the iconic pine trees known as matsu and the cedars called sugi.
In 1923, when Kawase was 40 years old, an earthquake struck, destroying his workshop and much of his work. This only increased Kawase’s fascination and respect for nature. Over the next three decades, Kawase became a core figure in the shin hanga movement. These were woodblock artists who combined a respect for traditional Japanese art forms with influences from the outside world, with which Japan was coming into increasingly closer contact. Kawase’s work incorporates Western techniques of light and, in particular, a European approach to perspective.
This early Kawase print shows some of the key elements of his style. It features many aspects of classic Japanese woodblock prints, like the floral pinks and natural greens, along with the iconic cherry blossom. However, what instantly makes this different from classic woodblock prints is the setting, which is the Washington Monument in the USA.
Kawase also approached his paintings of Japan from a fresh angle. Previously, most Japanese landscape artists had focused on painting famous places. An example would be the legendary artist Hokusai, known for works like the Great Wave off Kanagawa.
But Kawase instead focused on ordinary and unknown locations, like anonymous rural areas and quiet city streets. He applied techniques for painting iconic and impressive locations to everyday scenes. When people appear in his work, they tend to be in the background, and they are ordinary citizens rather than warriors or lords. His paintings also tend to show calm and tranquil moments — which may have expressed his yearning for the stability of the past during a time of great technological and social transformations in Japan. Kawase’s prints give us a glimpse into how he viewed the world. “The landscape I saw before me came to look like a print,” he once said.
Kawase’s work is like a snapshot of a moment in time, one where Japan’s contact with the world — particularly the West — was growing, but also in which traditions still exerted a strong influence. By fusing classic Japanese woodblock print styles with techniques from the West like realism and impressionism, Kawase produced a style all his own. Through Kawase’s eyes, we see Japan and the world from a new perspective.
In 1956, a year before his death, the Japanese government honored Kawase’s contribution to art by designating him a Living National Treasure. Six decades later, Kawase’s work continues to influence manga, anime and art in general. In the words of one Japanese artist, Kawase remains “a poet of the emotions of travel.”
