Thoughts on the Art of Bonsai: Artistree Bonsai Blog

Kawase Hasui’s art inspired Steve Jobs and many others. What can bonsai artists learn from his work?

In her memoir, Lisa Brennan-Jobs wrote about visiting her father three months before he died, “I tiptoed into my father’s room, careful to step over the creaky floorboard at the entrance…there were framed prints by Hasui of twilight and sunset at temples. A patch of pink light stretched out on a wall beside him.” (1)

We each have within us a reservoir of experiences (real or imagined), accompanied by feelings and images, that serve as inspiration for our creative efforts. It seems obvious that views of nature provide that for bonsai artists, whether they were witnessed firsthand or seen in a photograph, painting or other picture. For me, the nature scenes depicted in Japanese woodblock prints are one such source of inspiration.

When I view prints by Hasui, a prominent artist of the Shin-hanga movement, I imagine traveling as he did through the Japan of that earlier era in search of “nameless places”. I feel that I can understand why Hasui stopped to sketch a particular scene and then, with the experience still fresh in his mind, spend his evening adding color to it.

Often, as I work on bonsai, I have Hasui’s images in mind, yet there is more to it than that. I am not trying to reproduce his work, instead I am trying to understand how he so successfully communicates his feelings about a scene to the viewer.

Hasui’s images also hint at something beyond the frame. The prints themselves are just one point at the beginning – of a journey, of a forest, of a season, of a sunset, of an era, of an ordinary day in someone’s life … of a feeling.

As Norio Kobayashi, one of the founders of the Kokufu-ten Exhibition, once said, a bonsai differs from any other potted plant because a bonsai is meant to suggest a larger scene or landscape (3). I believe that studying Hasui’s art can help me to create bonsai that do just that.

Shin Hanga

The Shin-hanga (“new prints”) movement was started by publisher Watanabe Shōzaburō (1885-1962) during the Taisho and Showa periods in Japan, with the majority of prints produced from about 1915 to 1942. Shin-hanga has been described as revitalizing the tradition of woodblock printing (Ukiyo-e) from the Edo and Meiji periods (17th -19th century) when work by such famous artists as Hiroshige and Hokusai was produced.

Shin-hanga and Ukiyo-e prints were both created through the use of a collaborative system, with the artist, carver, printer and publisher all having important roles in the production of the final image. However, Shin Hanga prints were produced with the more advanced printing techniques that had been developed by that time. As a result, Shin-hanga prints were created with many more layers of ink in order to create subtle gradations and denser color.

In addition, many Shin-hanga artists and Hasui in particular incorporated Western ideas that emphasized the effects of light and the expression of individual moods. Some of these ideas were borrowed from Impressionism, which had itself been influenced by Japanese art in the late 19th century during the period of so-called Japonisme in the Western art world.

Kawase Hasui (川瀬 巴水)

Hayashi Nozomo, in his book Nostalgia. Imagery in Kawase Hasui’s Woodblock Prints, (Kawade Shobo Shinsha, 2020), described Hasui as a “painter of woodblock prints,” adding, “…[He] cannot be called ‘a woodblock print artist’. Rather, Hasui was a painter. In the past, he would have been called an eshi, referring to the painter who made the painting or drawing from which a woodblock print was made.” (4)

Hasui much preferred to paint ‘nameless places”- bringing to mind the haiku of Matsuo Basho

Hasui depicted known landmarks and famous scenes when he was on assignment from his publisher, but he much preferred to paint “nameless places,” scenes that he discovered on his travels (this brings to mind the haiku of Matsuo Basho). The scholar Narasaki Muneshige wrote that Hasui said,  “Most often I sketch in pencil, and I do not draw places that don’t make much of an impression.” Regarding color he said, ‘’I am able to observe sensitively because I have studied Western art.” (5)

Hasui used his understanding of light, shadow and other atmospheric effects to communicate his feelings about a scene to the viewer, to relate the mood or tone of a place. Hasui expertly depicted snow, rain, and the light from a sunset or moonrise.

In the woodblock print titled, “The Moon at Kasaoka,” Hasui intentionally omitted the full moon that was part of the original scene (and that he had included in his initial sketch). In place of the moon, he depicts the distant sky gradually becoming lighter, suggesting that the moon would soon be rising. This is an allusion to classical Japanese literature where this phenomenon is known as “moon white.” (4)

We suppose [that] experience has the same definite limits as the things with which it is concerned…Things, objects are only focal points of a here and now in a whole that stretches out indefinitely.

John Dewey

John Dewey, in Art as Experience, writes that our “conception of experience” is influenced by viewing an artistic object (painting, sculpture), that has definite boundaries and edges, when in fact experiences have indefinite boundaries. (6) This is something Hasui seems also to have grasped.

For example, Hasui’s images rarely included more than two or three people who were usually engaged in common daily activities and who were seen only from a distance. His figures are shown concentrating on some activity or looking at something located outside of the image. This is one of the ways that Hasui invites viewers to put themselves into the scene, to imagine what lies beyond.

Inspiration for Bonsai – Some of Kawase Hasui’s Prints

Gallery of Kawase Hasui Prints (Click on an image to enlarge). Rights: Wikipedia Commons, 2024. They are briefly discussed below.

Hasui’s image of trees in moonlight can produce a feeling of somber tranquility and peace (“Moon at Magome” 1930).

His depiction of a line of trees at the edge of a cultivated field encourages our eyes to follow the intersecting lines and angles of trunks and branches, the rhythm, of the trees (“Ichinokura, at Ikegami, Sunset” 1928). This image of a straight line of trees at the edge of a tea field, filtering the sunset, is not the usual bonsai forest composition, yet it is very compelling. It can be broken down into several subgroups of trees, each a separate “still life”.

“Twilight at Ushibori” (1930) depicts a calm, pastoral scene of great beauty, with a simple line of trees along a shore. The area to the right of the trees with tiny trees near the horizon adds to the feeling of space stretching out indefinitely.

“Nikkō Kaidō” (1930) shows a pilgrim walking along one of the five main roads of old Japan through a dense forest of cryptomeria. The soaring height and thick trunks of the ancient trees contrasts with the figure of the pilgrim.

In “Hikawa Park at Omiya” (1930), Hasui again shows his skill depicting light, with the early morning sun illuminating the treetops.

In “The Grounds of the Kanda Myojin Shrine” (1926), Hasui included a dog standing next to two trees in place of a human figure. The dog gazes at the city of Tokyo in the distance. The Shrine had burned in the Great Kanto earthquake of 1923. The powerfully drawn clouds may be a reference to both the power of nature and to its beauty.

Some Final Thoughts

Every individual will respond (or not) to Hasui’s art in their own way. I am inspired by Hasui to create bonsai that better communicate to a viewer my feelings about nature, about some scene I have long appreciated or just imagined. Hasui also inspired me to create bonsai that can be, quoting Dewey, the “focal point of a here and now in a whole that stretches out indefinitely.”

Bibliography

1. Brennan-Jobs, Lisa. Small Fry. A Memoir. Grove Press, NY., 2018.
2. NHK World Japan, “The beginning of Steve Jobs’ lifelong love of shin-hanga”. July 1, 2021. https://www3.nhk.or.jp/nhkworld/en/news/backstories/1681/
3. Kobayashi, N. Bonsai – Miniature Potted Trees, 12th ed. Japan Travel Bureau, Tokyo, 1963.
4. Hayashi Nozomo. Nostalgia. Imagery in Kawase Hasui’s Woodblock Prints, Kawade Shobo Shinsha, 2020.
5. Narasaki Muneshige. “Kawase Hasui: His life and Prints.” in A Collection of Woodblock Prints of Kawase Hasui. Mainichi Press, 1979.
6. Dewey, John. Art as Experience, Perigree Press , NY, NY, 1980.