With merciless wildfires raging throughout the West, it’s a good time to visualize rain.
Just finished this beautiful woodblock nocturne by the great shin hanga printmaker Kawase Hasui (1883-1957), and am very pleased with it. The oban size print (14-1/4″ x 9-3/8″), dated 1932, is titled “Rain at Maekawa Near Kozu.” I played some more here with proud splines. Looking to the architecture in the print for something to echo in the architecture of the frame, the shape of the thatched roofs caught my fancy, thus the shape of the splines. Otherwise, the frame is simple as can be—just a 1″ wide No. 1 in walnut stained Black. Oh—and an 1/8″ white gold slip to answer the light in the windows. The frame being itself a window, I guess that’s a second reference to the architecture. The mat is a very dark grey solid core rag mat. (Two other recent posts on framing Hasui are here and here.)
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