Sosaku Hanga at the Arthur M. Sackler Museum

Of special interest to printmakers is a glowing exhibition of creative prints (Sosaku Hanga) which is on view at the Sackler Museum in Washington DC until April 27, 2025.

In early 20th century Japan, a changing world of printmaking emerged, due to imperialist expansion, wartime angst and foreign occupation. Printmakers who in previous centuries had created prints known as Ukiyo-e, in which one artist created the design, another carved the woodblock and a further artist printed the many blocks to create a full colored print.

Ukiyo-e prints, created during the 17th to the 19th centuries reflected the “floating world” of the senses, including Kabuki characters, Sumo wrestlers, travel scenes and erotica. They were produced in numbered editions by such artists as Masanobu, Hiroshige and Hokusai. Publishers, who were part of the enterprise, advertised and distributed the prints to wealthy buyers, who  decorated their homes with them.  

In 1859, the port of Nagasaki reopened to international shipping after having been  closed for 200 years, and Europeans became fascinated with the artworks. Japonisme, a craze for things Japanese in the West, was born through these prints. Impressionist artist such as Degas, Monet, and Cassatt, who found the flattened perspective and brilliant colors fascinating, were inspired by the new look, and they exhibited paintings with a new sense of perspective at the first Impressionist exhibition in Paris in 1874. Later, van Gogh implemented this ethic into his canvases. 

Then, as we see in the exhibition at the Sacker Museum, a group of printmakers who wanted to create the whole process themselves, wishing to have their prints seen by a larger, more international audience. in Sosaku Hanga prints, the woodblocks  are rougher and more visceral than their more bucolic predecessors, but therein lies the fascination. These printmakers felt that they had a closer response to their message by carving the wood and the mixing of colored inks themselves, resulting in art which expressed emotions more clearly. 

Rosemary Cooley