The Road at Arayu near Shiobara

The introduction into Japan of photography, lithography, and other new image- making techniques during the late nineteenth century posed a severe challenge to the traditional Japanese woodblock printing industry. By 1900, the once popular woodblock-printed images of famous people, places, and stories were regarded by many Japanese as old-fashioned and undesirable in comparison to more modern forms of pictures. Concerned that the art of color woodblock printing might die out in Japan, a businessman named Watanabe Shozaburo (1885-1962) started a movement in 1915 to revive the industry by commissioning designs from a new generation of artists and having the images carved into woodblocks and printed in the traditional manner. Watanabe called his movement the Shin Hanga, or "New Print," Movement and he soon attracted other publishers and artists to his cause. Although the Shin Hanga Movement enjoyed some support within Japan, many of its prints were sold to European and American collectors, whose patronage helped the movement to grow and prosper in the decades leading up to World War II.

Kawase Hasui was one of the first artists recruited by Watanabe into the Shin Hanga Movement. Trained in both Japanese and Western-style painting, Hasui quickly became known for his picturesque and often romanticized images of landscapes and traditional-style buildings. Over the course of his career, Hasui designed more than five hundred prints for Watanabe, some of which were reprinted numerous times to produce thousands of impressions. Hasui's outstanding artistic achievements and importance within the Shin Hanga Movement were recognized by the Japanese government in 1956, when he was designated as a Living National Treasure.

The Road at Arayu near Shiobara was designed by Hasui in 1918 and printed by Watanabe in 1919. It depicts the landscape around Shiobara, a town north of Tokyo, which had long been famous for its relaxing natural hot springs. The elongated horizontal format and warm color scheme of this print are unusual for Hasui and reveal it to be an early, experimental work. Because the original blocks for this image were destroyed in the great 1923 Kanto earthquake, it was never reprinted and is relatively rare, especially in the excellent condition of this impression from the Ainsworth collection.