was an artist in Japan

Japan

Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...

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Early life

Hashiguchi was born Hashiguchi Kiyoshi in Kagoshima Prefecture

Kagoshima Prefecture

is a prefecture of Japan located on the island of Kyushu. The capital is the city of Kagoshima.- Geography :Kagoshima Prefecture is located at the southwest tip of Kyushu and includes a chain of islands stretching further to the southwest for a few hundred kilometers...

. His father Hashiguchi Kanemizu was a samurai and amateur painter in the Shijo style. His father hired a teacher in the Kano style of painting in 1899 when Kiyoshi was only ten. Kiyoshi took the name of Goyo while attending the Tokyo School of Fine Arts, from which he graduated best in his class in 1905. The name Goyo was chosen because of his fondness for the five needle pine in his father's garden.

Early career

His first commission was designing the layout and illustrations for Natsume Sōseki

Natsume Soseki

, born ', is widely considered to be the foremost Japanese novelist of the Meiji period . He is best known for his novels Kokoro, Botchan, I Am a Cat and his unfinished work Light and Darkness. He was also a scholar of British literature and composer of haiku, Chinese-style poetry, and fairy tales...

’s novel "I Am a Cat

I Am a Cat

is a satirical novel written in 1905–1906 by Natsume Sōseki, about Japanese society during the Meiji Period; particularly, the uneasy mix of Western culture and Japanese traditions, and the aping of Western customs....

" in 1905. This led to design of other books by Futabatei Shimei

Futabatei Shimei

was a Japanese author, translator, and literary critic. Born Hasegawa Tatsunosuke in Edo , Futabatei's works are in the realist style popular in the mid- to late-19th century...

, Uchida Roan, Morita Sohei

Morita Sohei

was the pen name of Morita Yonematsu, a Japanese novelist and translator of Western literature active during the late Meiji, Taishō and early Shōwa periods of Japan.-Early life:...

, Jun'ichirō Tanizaki, Nagai Kafu

Nagai Kafu

is the pen name of Japanese author, playwright, essayist, and diarist Nagai Sōkichi . His works are noted for their depictions of life in early 20th-century Tokyo, especially among geisha, prostitutes, cabaret dancers, and other denizens of the city's lively entertainment districts.-Biography:Kafū...

, and Kyōka Izumi

Kyoka Izumi

is the pen name of a Japanese author of novels, short stories, and kabuki plays who was active from the late Meiji to the early Shōwa periods. He is best known for a characteristic brand of Romanticism preferring tales of the supernatural heavily influenced by works of the earlier Edo period in...

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In 1907 Goyō won recognition for an ukiyo-e

Ukiyo-e

' is a genre of Japanese woodblock prints and paintings produced between the 17th and the 20th centuries, featuring motifs of landscapes, tales from history, the theatre, and pleasure quarters...

 oil painting in the first Bunten show in 1907 but was disappointed in the unenthusiastic public acceptance of his oil paintings in future shows. In 1911 he again won recognition for an ukiyo-e poster designed for the Mitsukoshi

Mitsukoshi

is an international department store chain with headquarters in Tokyo, Japan. Mitsukoshi Ltd. has amalgamated with Isetan Co.,Ltd ,and changed company name to Isetan Mitsukoshi Ltd.- History :...

 department store. He then became a serious student of ukiyo-e. Goyō studied from books, originals and reproductions. He was especially interested in the great classical ukiyo-e artists and wrote several articles about Utamaro

Utamaro

was a Japanese printmaker and painter, who is considered one of the greatest artists of woodblock prints . His name was romanized as Outamaro. He is known especially for his masterfully composed studies of women, known as bijinga...

, Hiroshige

Hiroshige

was a Japanese ukiyo-e artist, and one of the last great artists in that tradition. He was also referred to as Andō Hiroshige and by the art name of Ichiyūsai Hiroshige ....

 and Harunobu

Suzuki Harunobu

was a Japanese woodblock print artist, one of the most famous in the Ukiyo-e style. He was an innovator, the first to produce full-color prints in 1765, rendering obsolete the former modes of two- and three-color prints. Harunobu used many special techniques, and depicted a wide variety of...

. From 1914, while frail and suffering from beriberi

Beriberi

Beriberi is a nervous system ailment caused by a thiamine deficiency in the diet. Thiamine is involved in the breakdown of energy molecules such as glucose and is also found on the membranes of neurons...

, he contributed articles on various ukiyo-e studies to Art News (Bijutsu shinpo) and Ukiyo-e

Ukiyo-e

' is a genre of Japanese woodblock prints and paintings produced between the 17th and the 20th centuries, featuring motifs of landscapes, tales from history, the theatre, and pleasure quarters...

magazine.

Defining works

In 1915, urged by the shin hanga

Shin hanga

was an art movement in early 20th-century Japan, during the Taishō and Shōwa periods, that revitalized traditional ukiyo-e art rooted in the Edo and Meiji periods...

 publisher Watanabe Shozaburo, he designed a print for artisans to produce under Watanabe’s direction. Goyō designed "Bathing" (Yuami), Watanabe wanted to continue the collaboration but Goyō had other plans. Instead, he worked in 1916-1917 as supervisor of reproductions for 12 volumes called "Japanese Color Prints" (Yamato nishiki-e) and in the process became thoroughly familiar with the functions of artisan carvers and printers. At the same time he was drawing from live models. From 1918 until his death he personally supervised the carving, printing, and publication of his own works. From 1918 until his death he produced thirteen more prints - four landscapes, one nature print depicting ducks and eight prints of women. His total production, including "Bathing," numbers fourteen prints. (After his death a few more of his designs were developed into prints by his heirs.)

Death at age forty-one

In late 1920, Hashiguchi's latent health problems escalated into meningitis

Meningitis

Meningitis is inflammation of the protective membranes covering the brain and spinal cord, known collectively as the meninges. The inflammation may be caused by infection with viruses, bacteria, or other microorganisms, and less commonly by certain drugs...

. He supervised his last print "Hot Spring Hotel" from his death bed, but could not finish it personally. He died in February 1921.

Goyō had left several sketches from which his elder brother and his nephew had later produced seven more prints. The carving and printing had been commissioned to Maeda Kentaro and Hirai Koichi.
Goyō Hashiguchi prints are of extremely high quality standards. They were sold at very high prices at the time of their first publication and sold well nevertheless. The tragedy of Hashiguchi was the short time span of only two years to produce these superb masterworks - apart from his first print published with Watanabe.

The blocks for the fourteen prints and many of the prints themselves were destroyed in the Great Kanto earthquake

1923 Great Kanto earthquake

The struck the Kantō plain on the Japanese main island of Honshū at 11:58:44 am JST on September 1, 1923. Varied accounts hold that the duration of the earthquake was between 4 and 10 minutes...

 of 1923. However, Goyō reprints are currently on the market. Most reprints are marked with a small seal in the side margin, something which does not appear on original prints. Many years after Goyō's death, his brother used Goyō's remaining designs as the basis for ten more prints. These were published with the same standards as the earlier prints and in limited numbers. The printing was supervised by Goyō's nephew, Hashiguchi Yasuo. Today, works by Goyō are among the most highly prized of all shin hanga

Shin hanga

was an art movement in early 20th-century Japan, during the Taishō and Shōwa periods, that revitalized traditional ukiyo-e art rooted in the Edo and Meiji periods...

prints.

External links

• Hashiguchi Goyo Information, print gallery,...