Hasui 巴水: The Red Setting Sun あかい夕日

Artist: Kawase Hasui 巴水 (1883-1957) Title: The Red Setting Sun あかい夕日 Date: 1937 A line of Japanese cavalry are shown in silhouette crossing a desolate plain, the sky blood red behind them. This is one of four war prints that Hasui designed, all based on photographs of the Imperial Japanese Army from the front lines in Manchuria as published in the magazine Asahi gurafu (Asahi Graph). Hasui very probably (almost certainly) had little interest in promoting the war, but he also probably had little choice to -not- create works of this type at this time. One may also read some hidden irony in the title “Red Setting Sun”, as of course Japan is known as the Land of the Rising Sun, as shown on its flag and in its name. The blocks were carved by Watanabe Tadasu, the son of Watanabe Shozaburo. In “Waves of renewal” (p. 157), the grandson of Watanabe Shozaburo relates the story that Hasui carried examples of these four prints with him on his sketching tours throughout Japan as proof to the author