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I find it interesting that most of those "modern" wood prints seem kinda crude & very abstract when compared to their counterparts. I wonder what is the reason
by m4rtink 3y ago
I find it interesting that most of those "modern" wood prints seem kinda crude & very abstract when compared to their counterparts.
I wonder what is the reason for that - artistic choise, only the best old prints being known today or perhaps loss of the techniques the old ones have been made with ?
- totetsu 3y agoI don't think it was lost. There are still people recarving the classics today. But at the hight of the craft, woodblock printing was being used for books, and flyers, and posters, and labels on good etc. there was a very high volume of low skill work that still got a little pay. This meant that the masters could have been working since childhood refining their craft. By The time of these images, there are mechanical presses doing all the non-art printing work. Also Japanese artist were aware of and participating in the global shifts in interests and ideas in art. Compared to some print of some beautiful maiko doing her make up with every stand of hair carefully cut into the block, I would say these images are more true to life. They convey the experience of being in those places at those times.
- 0xDEADFED5 3y agoit's in TFA: "The artists who contributed to the series were part of the sōsaku hanga (creative print) movement, which brought new techniques and aesthetic vocabularies to the Japanese woodblock."
- sorokod 3y agoI think that they are as crude and abstract as their creators wanted them to be. This is a new take on art, Fukagawa Garbage Incinerator would not have been a topic of Ukiyo-e