Yasuji was a “painter of light” who lived through the Meiji period and passed away at the young age of twenty-six. A pupil of Kiyochika, he inherited his master’s pioneering kosen-ga (light-ray prints) in their purest and most serene form.
Whereas Kiyochika’s light-ray prints expressed a sense of movement through dramatic sources of illumination such as fires and gas lamps, the Tokyo depicted by Yasuji is filled with a quiet, almost lonely stillness. In his works, the silence of a snowy day, the shimmer of a river at dusk, or the lingering dampness of streets after the rain are rendered through astonishingly delicate gradations of color. One can sense his deliberate restraint of the bold outlines typical of ukiyo-e, as he sought to print the very particles of light themselves.
In 1889 (Meiji 22), he changed his name to Tankei. At what should have been the moment to establish a fully independent style, his untimely death brought that possibility to an end. His light-ray prints thus remain as one of the most beautiful records of the twilight of the Meiji era. Until the very end, Yasuji’s works retained an unclouded, transparent sense of solitude and quiet melancholy.
Whereas Kiyochika’s light-ray prints expressed a sense of movement through dramatic sources of illumination such as fires and gas lamps, the Tokyo depicted by Yasuji is filled with a quiet, almost lonely stillness. In his works, the silence of a snowy day, the shimmer of a river at dusk, or the lingering dampness of streets after the rain are rendered through astonishingly delicate gradations of color. One can sense his deliberate restraint of the bold outlines typical of ukiyo-e, as he sought to print the very particles of light themselves.
In 1889 (Meiji 22), he changed his name to Tankei. At what should have been the moment to establish a fully independent style, his untimely death brought that possibility to an end. His light-ray prints thus remain as one of the most beautiful records of the twilight of the Meiji era. Until the very end, Yasuji’s works retained an unclouded, transparent sense of solitude and quiet melancholy.
