Artist: Hiroshi Yoshida
Medium: Original Japanese Woodblock Print
Series Title: Europe
Edition: First
Date: 1925
Publisher: The Artist - Privately Published
Reference No.: Abe #22
Size: 11 x 16 "
Condition: Very fine
Notes:
Pencil signed and titled by the artist. A stunning impression, with a large Jizuri seal in the upper left margin. In this example, Yoshida used warm tones to show a mid-day scene, including orange and pink hues which slightly contrasts to the Abe catalog impression.
"Acropolis" (also known as "Ancient Ruins of Athens") is a premier example of the shin-hanga movement, which blended traditional Japanese ukiyo-e woodblock techniques with Western artistic realism and light impressionism. This design depicts the sunlit remains of the Parthenon on the Acropolis of Athens, viewed from the entrance of the Propylaea. The artist sketched the ruins during the European leg of his expansive world tour between 1923 and 1925. Inspired by Monet and the French Impressionists, Yoshida often printed the exact same woodblocks with different color palettes to represent different times of the day. The Acropolis series famously features distinct "Day" (sunset/golden hour) and "Night" (cool moonlit blues) variants.