Japan: 'Fishing for Cormorants at Nagaragawa'. Tsuchiya Koitsu (1879-1949), 1940

Tsuchiya Koitsu was born under the name 'Koichi' to Hammamatsu in the Japanese countryside. He went to Tokyo at the age of 15 years to be apprenticed to a wood engraver called Matsuzaki, who worked for Kiyochika Kobayashi (1847-1915), an artist famous for his genre scenes and military prints. But instead of staying with the engraver, Koitsu integrated the workshop Kiyochika and remained there 19 years, during which he learned drawing and graphic composition. His first prints were subject to the Sino-Japanese War of 1894-1895, much in vogue at the time. The prints of Koitsu are mainly landscapes in the tradition of Kiyochika and Kawase Hasui based on a beautiful interpretation of light to express emotions, a mood, or an atmosphere.