SNOWY NIGHT LEGNED: By Yumeji Takehisa (1884 – 1934) Date c. 1910 – 1930.

Snowy Night Legend by Yumeji Takehisa (1884 – 1934) Date c. 1910 – 1930.

Yumeji Takehisa has been considered as the main figure who propelled “Taisho romanticism.”. The dreamy, fragile looking girls Yumeji invented in his works were so popular during the period of 1900 -1930 that they became the cultural icon of the Taisho /early Showa eras. Many artists imitated this "Yumeji-look" in order to take advantage of Yumeji’s popularity. Even today, he has been one of the most beloved artists in Japan. In addition to his work as an artist, he was also a writer and a poet.

He was born in a small village where his father Kikuzo worked as a sake brewer and today the family's home stands as a museum open to the public. As a child he was a passionate drawer. While attending a high school in Kobe, which was affiliated to the University of Waseda, he discovered his fascination for different and exotic things. At that time he started writing short stories and poems as well as creating illustrations for a magazine. When his parents decided to move to the south of Kyushu Island, Yumeji Takehisa wanted to go to Tokyo; however, his parents instead sent him to the private university of Waseda where he made a lot of friends. Shusui Kotoku (1871 - 1911), a famous socialist and anarchist, was one of them. At the age of 19 Yumeji Takehisa began to be engaged in portraiture.

At the age of 23 Yumeji Takehisa married Tamaki Kishi who, much to his advantage, ran an art store; however after only two years they were divorced. Tamaki was his major model and the reason why he turned to bijin-ga, a type of Japanese art which is about beautiful women. Traditionally most Japanese woodblock artists make bijin-ga - images of beautiful women - sooner or later during their career. Many women of whom Yumeji Takehisa fell in love posed for him and became his lovers.

In 1916 Yumeji Takehisa became chief illustrator of Shin-Shojo (Fashionable Girl) and of Fujin no tomo (Women's Friend) magazines. Later on he restarted making illustrations for the Kodomo no kuni (Children Land) magazine.

In 1923 his further career was brought to a halt by the great Kanto earthquake. Most of his woodblocks were destroyed Yumeji Takehisa had to restart from the beginning. He worked very hard and at last in 1931 he was able to make a journey to the U.S., Germany and Italy in order to show his work. But it was his last trip. In 1933 he returned to Japan because of a serious disease. Yumeji Takehisa died in the sanitorium of Fujimi Hiland in 1934 and was buried in Tokyo.

Being active in the hanga (Japanese for "print") movement, Yumeiji Takehisa was influenced by modern Western art, out of which a new style developed: "Taisho romanticism". Takehisa became one of its major exponents - mainly in the field of color woodblocks. He filled the decorative element of this style with a melancholic, poetic atmosphere which formed a beautiful harmony with the charm of beautiful women.

The minimalistic, sometimes naive compositions made Yumeji Takehisa one of the most popular artists in Japan of his time. After his journeys to the United States of America and to Europe the Western influence became more dominant in his style, with the traditional style of the Japanese woodblock being more and more replaced by expressionism, abstraction and simplification.

KESHO NO ONNA (WOMAN APPLYING MAKE-UP) C. 1918. By Hashiguchi Goya

Hashiguchi Goyō (橋口 五葉 Hashiguchi Goyō, December 21, 1880 - February 24, 1921) created only 14 published prints during his life-time — the first at age thirty-five and the last shortly before his death at forty-one. These prints are among the finest and most expensive modern Japanese prints a collector can buy and made Goyo immortal. If Hashiguchi had not been of such frail health, he could have become the leading Japanese artist of the twentieth century. 

Hashiguchi was born as the son of a samurai in Kagoshima as Hashiguchi Kiyoshi. He was taught in traditional Kano painting by his father, an amateur painter, from the early age of ten. Later he went to Tokyo, called himself Goyo and studied Western oil painting at the Tokyo School of Fine Arts, from which he graduated in 1905 as the best student of his class. 

His first commission was an illustration for a book titled I am a Cat by Natsume Sōseki in 1905. In 1907 Hashiguchi won the first prize in a contest for an ukiyo-e poster. This brought him some public recognition and one would have expected the artist to jump into creating more Hashiguchi prints but he was disappointed by an unenthusiastic public in future shows. In 1911 he again won recognition for an ukiyo-e poster designed for the Mitsukoshi department store. From that point on he became a serious student of ukiyo-e and began to study ukiyo-e from books, originals, and reproductions. He was especially interested in the great classical ukiyo-e artists. He was especially interested in the great classical ukiyo-e artists. From 1914, while frail and suffering from beriberi, he contributed articles on various ukiyo-e studies to Art News (Bijutsu-shinpō) and Ukiyo-e magazine, and wrote several articles about Utamaro, Hiroshige and Harunobu on a scholar-like level.

In 1915, urged by the shin-hanga publisher Watanabe Shōzaburō, 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 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.)

The first Goyo Hashiguchi print titled Woman in bath or Yuami was a terrific masterwork. Watanabe was enthusiastic and wanted to continue the cooperation with Hashiguchi. But the artist had other plans. Probably he was feeling too much restricted in his artistic freedom by the successful but rigid and business-like Watanabe. 

In late 1920, Hashiguchi's latent health problems escalated into meningitis. He supervised his last print Hot Spring Hotel from his death bed in hospital, but could not finish it personally. He died in February 1921. 

Goyo had left several sketches from which his heirs — 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. 

Goyo 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.