Japanese, 1838–1901

Biography

In the 1880s, an economic boom in Japan encouraged a renaissance of traditional color woodblock painting. Kashû blended the contemporary interest in woodblock prints with East Asia’s centuries-old fascination with artistic depictions of birds and flowers. His colorful books received a lavish production from a Tokyo printer that went out of business soon afterward, rendering the volumes instant rarities. Kashû’s woodblock prints were so popular that dealers carved up available books in order to sell the images individually, making complete versions even harder to find.