Shin-Hanga vs Sōsaku-hanga
新版画 / 創作版画
Both sit in Japanese Woodblock Prints, so the question is not what they belong to but how they behave. Both are read here as style. They are reached for with different intent, which is the fastest way to tell them apart.
Shin-Hanga
The woodblock revival led by publisher Watanabe Shōzaburō: ukiyo-e's carver-printer division joined to Western light and atmosphere. Hasui's nights and rains became the beloved image of a lyric Japan abroad.
Sōsaku-hanga
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A movement that rejected the division of labor among designer, carver and printer and declared that one person draws, carves and prints. It chose to leave the trace of the maker's hand rather than technical perfection, taking the opposite road from the shin-hanga of the same years.
| Shin-Hanga | Sōsaku-hanga | |
|---|---|---|
| Era | 1915–1960s | 1904–1960s |
| Family | Japanese Woodblock Prints | Japanese Woodblock Prints |
| Kind | Style | Style |
| Cues | The lyricism of night and rain / Western treatment of light / Precision of the carver-printer system / Landscapes of travel | Coarse lines that keep the marks of the knife / Self drawn, self carved, self printed / Tolerance for distortion and uneven inking / Subjects personal to the artist |
| Best used for | Travel and hospitality imagery built on quiet landscape feeling · Limited print editions and seasonal book covers or packaging | Making prints that keep the trace of the hand as a value · Showing making in the first person rather than by division of labor |
| Type | Keep lettering out of the image, at the margin or the seal position | Cut hand carved letters into the block as part of the image. |
| Composition | Low horizon, a single light source, the foreground sunk into dark | Use the rectangle of the block itself as the frame. |
| Material | Graded bokashi on washi, rain lines carved thin on a separate block | Keep the grain of the wood and the cut marks, and do not erase uneven printing. |
| Caution | Chasing only the mood of night and rain misses the tonal precision the carver and printer supply, and leaves nostalgia for a motif. | Roughness itself is not the goal. The substance is the choice of what you take on with your own hands. |