Sosaku Hanga - etc

Sosaku Hanga
was an early 20th C.
Japanese art movement
that tried to bring the woodblock print
into the world
of modern art.


And this month's show at the
Buckingham Gallery at the Art Institute
is mostly about one of its founders,
Onchi Koshiro



He was born into the imperial family,
but he wanted to be a modern artist,
and it looks like he
picked up on everything he saw

beginning with Renoir


but always
feeling like
nothing other than
Japanese graphic design





I'm not sure he ever lived in Paris,
but it certainly looks like it






and it also feels like
he lived in Japan,
the Japan that was careening
into the insanity of war and militarism








making it's sensitive artsy types
a little insane as well.






What an image of catastrophe!

No aesthete would ever want to imagine
seeing such things --
it must have just happened,
and then he recorded it



This one feels like
aloof alienation





and this one
may be a little angry

But also in the gallery
are the voluptuous
ceramics of Kitaoji Rosanjin (1883-1959)
whom I mentioned
in an earlier post




I love this guy,
and wish I could have
eaten at his restaurant.




You see,
he was also a famous chef.



this could be some kind pasta,
couldn't it ?