Shin-Hanga

In the Seventeenth though Nineteenth Centuries, Japan developed a highly-regarded school of printmaking called Ukiyo-e ("Pictures of the Floating World").  This time period was one of growth for a budding Japanese middle class; some of the peasant underclass were now becoming merchants or businessmen—and, for the first time, had a little extra money for niceties.  These beautiful woodblock prints were a tasteful and affordable way for the newly-minted middle class to decorate their homes.  This time period also coincided with the West's rabid fascination with all things Asian.  Wealthy Europeans (and a few Americans) prized those rare and exotic artworks imported from the East: ceramics, lacquerware, calligraphy and prints.  The French Impressionist artists were highly influenced by the compositions, lighting, attitude and understated simplicity conveyed in Japanese Ukiyo-e prints.  While old-money Japanese aristocrats considered these prints of lesser quality and importance, this did not stop the lower classes—or Westerners—from devouring the works

In the Nineteenth Century, as the Japanese become more familiar with Western art (painting, sculpture, music), there was a move in Japanese academic art circles to embrace (and train students) in the European fine arts.  This caused Ukiyo-e to fall-out of fashion (at least in Japan).  It had become considered "old-fashioned."  In the West, however, the prints were still highly prized, admired and collected.

Around the Turn of the Twentieth Century—when the Arts & Crafts Movement was en vogue in the West—the Shin-Hanga (the "New Prints") movement began in Japan.  It was a return to woodblock print craft—though more Modernist, simplified and "graphic" in style. Themes of nature, animals or beautiful architecture were common subjects.

The collection of 14 woodblock printed greeting cards, shown above, were made in the Shin-Hanga manner, in Kyoto, in the years after World War Two.

Kyoto Hanga-In was a publisher in Kyoto who produced these Shin-Hanga woodblock prints.  As in the long-established, traditional manner, the publisher coordinated the work as it passed amongst the different people who divided the labor: the artist-designers, the wood block carvers (xylographers), the printers, and those who assembled the cards and boxed the works.  (The alternative Sõsaku-hanga school of "creative prints" instructed that one, single artist should execute all stages of the work, from conception through completion.)

This set of 14 cards was created, in Kyoto, in the Fifties or Sixties.  Each woodblock image is printed upon washi paper and "tipped-in" to the cover of the greeting card (that is, attached loosely, along the top edge only.  Although these cards (and their 14 envelopes) are perfectly suited to using and mailing, the 3.5" x 5.5" prints are also perfect for framing and displaying.  Inside each folded card, a piece of washi paper is tipped-in, upon which one could write a message.  Click on one of the photos above to learn more about these handsome and interesting cards.