Gasshôzukuri Farmhouses in Snow / Saitô Kiyoshi

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About this Item

Record Details

Accession Number
1994/2.4
Title
Gasshôzukuri Farmhouses in Snow
Artist Nationality
Japanese
Artist Life Dates
(active 1907 - 1997)
Medium and Support
color woodblock print on paper
Object Creation Date
circa 1958
Object Creation Place
Asia (continent)
Japan (nation)
Creation Place 1
Asia (continent)
Creation Place 2
Japan (nation)
Style/Group/Movement
Sôsaku hanga
Inscription
Signed in pencil, l.l.: Kiyoshi Saito
Seal on verso in black ink, l.r.
Dimensions
28.3 cm x 43 cm (11 1/8 in. x 16 15/16 in.)
Century
20th century
Primary Object Classification
Print
Primary Object Type
color print
Secondary Object Classification
Print
Secondary Object Type
landscape
Physical Description
A native of Sakamoto in Fukushima Prefecture, the artist here depicts his far northern hometown with the snow-covered imagery to present a view of traditional Japan in a innovative and modern way.
Subject Matter
The artist was a member of the Creative Print (sôsaku hanga) movement, which played a strategic role in the transformation of American-Japanese relations during the Cold War. In the decades before and after the Second World War Americans were receiving conflicting messages about Japan, which was successively presented as an exotic land of geisha, an increasingly evil adversary of America and its culture, and finally as a much-needed ally against communism in Asia. Post-war, the people of the United States and Japan were encouraged by their governments to embrace one another as friends (although with America occupying Japan until the 1950s, this friendship was less than equal) and art was considered an attractive vehicle for promoting this political goal. Already popular among occupying forces, the work of Creative Print artists appealed to the larger American audience because it both resonated with nostalgic pre-war conceptions of Japan and was infused with a modern sensibility.
This modern presentation of traditional Japan is one that the versatile Saitô captured masterfully in his work. Famous places in Japan were one of the most popular subjects of Edo (1615–1868) and Meiji (1868–1912) period woodblock prints, and Creative Print artists strove to represent them in innovative ways. This imagery of Japan is one that drew on the past yet was visually fresh.
Rights
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Technical Details

Image Size
1433 x 931
File Size
130 KB
Record
1994/2.4
Link to this Item
https://quod.lib.umich.edu/m/musart/x-1994-sl-2.4/1994_2.4.jpg

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Manifest
https://quod.lib.umich.edu/cgi/i/image/api/manifest/musart:1994-SL-2.4:1994_2.4.JPG

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"Gasshôzukuri Farmhouses in Snow; Saitô Kiyoshi." In the digital collection University of Michigan Museum of Art. https://quod.lib.umich.edu/m/musart/x-1994-sl-2.4/1994_2.4.jpg. University of Michigan Library Digital Collections. Accessed March 29, 2024.
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