Hasui: Akashi-cho After the Rain 明石町の雨後 (Sold)

Artist: Kawase Hasui  川瀬 巴水 Title: Akashi-cho After the Rain  明石町の雨後 Series: Twenty Views of Tokyo 東京二十景 Date: 1928 We take the view of an expectant dog, gazing out towards the ships in harbor and the smokestack beyond. It must be twilight, as the yellow lights of the opposite shore are beginning to reflect upon the water. The ships seem surprisingly old-fashioned, but Japan was a far less industrialized place before the war. Narazaki wrote: “A detailed technique has been applied in depicting the patterns of the sea waves... There are two versions of this image; one printed in a dark color scheme and a second in light tones.” This is the version with the lighter sky, and the Watanabe seal at right indicates that this was printed in the 1930s. There is a terrific sketch for this design in one of Hasui’s sketchbooks that resides at the Ota City Folk Museum. This exact print is illustrated on page 67, number 95 of the 2013 Ota City Folk Museum catalog “Special exhibition of Hasui Kawase--