Onchi Koshiro
Encyclopedia
Tokyo
, ; officially , is one of the 47 prefectures of Japan. Tokyo is the capital of Japan, the center of the Greater Tokyo Area, and the largest metropolitan area of Japan. It is the seat of the Japanese government and the Imperial Palace, and the home of the Japanese Imperial Family...
, was a Japanese print-maker. He was the father of the sōsaku hanga
Sosaku hanga
was an art movement in early 20th-century Japan, during the Taishō and Shōwa periods. It advocated the principles of "self-drawn" , "self-carved" and "self-printed" art, stressing the artist, motivated by a desire for self-expression, as the sole creator...
movement in twentieth century Japan, and a photographer.
Biography
Onchi came from an aristocratic family that had close connections with the imperial family. As a child, he received the same kind of education that a prince received. Onchi was trained in both traditional calligraphyCalligraphy
Calligraphy is a type of visual art. It is often called the art of fancy lettering . A contemporary definition of calligraphic practice is "the art of giving form to signs in an expressive, harmonious and skillful manner"...
and modern western art. After contacts with Takehisa Yumeji
Takehisa Yumeji
, was a Japanese poet and painter. Takehisa died in 1934 at the age of 49. He never studied drawing in any painting school nor under any teacher formally...
in 1909, between 1910 and 1915, he studied oil painting
Oil painting
Oil painting is the process of painting with pigments that are bound with a medium of drying oil—especially in early modern Europe, linseed oil. Often an oil such as linseed was boiled with a resin such as pine resin or even frankincense; these were called 'varnishes' and were prized for their body...
and sculpture
Sculpture
Sculpture is three-dimensional artwork created by shaping or combining hard materials—typically stone such as marble—or metal, glass, or wood. Softer materials can also be used, such as clay, textiles, plastics, polymers and softer metals...
at the Tokyo School of Fine Arts . In 1912, he founded the print
Printing
Printing is a process for reproducing text and image, typically with ink on paper using a printing press. It is often carried out as a large-scale industrial process, and is an essential part of publishing and transaction printing....
and poetry magazine called “Tsukubae”.
Onchi was also a book designer in the early days when it was impossible for sōsaku hanga
Sosaku hanga
was an art movement in early 20th-century Japan, during the Taishō and Shōwa periods. It advocated the principles of "self-drawn" , "self-carved" and "self-printed" art, stressing the artist, motivated by a desire for self-expression, as the sole creator...
artists to survive by just doing creative prints. He designed over 1000 books in his career. In 1939, he founded the First Thursday Society , which was crucial to the postwar revival of the sōsaku hanga movement. The society held artist gatherings once a month in Onchi’s house. Members such as Gen Yamaguchi (1896–1976) and Junichirō Sekino (1914–1988) discussed subjects of prints. The American connoisseurs Ernst Hacker, William Hartnett and Oliver Statler also attended. The First Thursday Collection , a collection of prints by members to circulate to each other, was produced in 1944. Through the First Thursday Society, Onchi provided aspiring young artists with resources and comradeship during the war years when resources were scarce and censorship
Censorship
thumb|[[Book burning]] following the [[1973 Chilean coup d'état|1973 coup]] that installed the [[Military government of Chile |Pinochet regime]] in Chile...
severe. After the war, he emerged as the leader of the sōsaku hanga movement that flourished in the international art scene.
Style and technique
Onchi's prints range from early representationalRepresentation (arts)
Representation is the use of signs that stand in for and take the place of something else. It is through representation that people organize the world and reality through the act of naming its elements...
to postwar abstract
Abstract art
Abstract art uses a visual language of form, color and line to create a composition which may exist with a degree of independence from visual references in the world. Western art had been, from the Renaissance up to the middle of the 19th century, underpinned by the logic of perspective and an...
prints
Printmaking
Printmaking is the process of making artworks by printing, normally on paper. Printmaking normally covers only the process of creating prints with an element of originality, rather than just being a photographic reproduction of a painting. Except in the case of monotyping, the process is capable...
. As an early advocate of the sōsaku hanga
Sosaku hanga
was an art movement in early 20th-century Japan, during the Taishō and Shōwa periods. It advocated the principles of "self-drawn" , "self-carved" and "self-printed" art, stressing the artist, motivated by a desire for self-expression, as the sole creator...
movement, Onchi believed that artistic creation originates from the self. He was more interested in expressing subjective emotions through abstract
Abstract art
Abstract art uses a visual language of form, color and line to create a composition which may exist with a degree of independence from visual references in the world. Western art had been, from the Renaissance up to the middle of the 19th century, underpinned by the logic of perspective and an...
prints than in replicating images and forms in the objective world. His prints evoke lyrical and poetic mood. He said:
Art is not to be understood by the mind but by the heart. If we go back to its origin, painting is expressed in color and form by the heart, and it should never be limited to a world of reflected forms captured by visual sense. Therefore, expression of the heart through color and forms separated from color and form in the real world is that true realm of painting. I will for the time call this type of work the ‘lyrique’.
Onchi innovated by incorporating fabrics, string, paper blocks, fish fins, and leaves in his prints.
Photography
From around 1932, Onchi worked on the design of a number of books about photography published by Genkōsha and Ars. He also became interested in photography. Through the 1930s and 1940s, Onchi worked in the spirit of shinkō shashin. He worked on plants, animals and objets, and also created photogramPhotogram
A photogram is a photographic image made without a camera by placing objects directly onto the surface of a photo-sensitive material such as photographic paper and then exposing it to light. The result is a negative shadow image varying in tone, depending on the transparency of the objects used...
s.
Onchi was sent to China in 1939 and later the same year returned to Tokyo and had an exhibition of his Chinese works.
Onchi exhibited his photograms in 1951 but otherwise dropped out of photography. He died in Tokyo on 3 June 1955.