Yoshimoto Gesso – The Arborist Japanese Woodblock Print- Man Suspended In Basket. Measures 16.75 in x 5.5 in approximately. Please see photos to determine the condition for yourself and what you are purchasing. As photos are part of the description. Overall great original condition. The wood frame shows light age, surface wear and paint loss. Wood frame has minor surface scratches, nicks and bumps. Lower section of glass on the frame has an imperfection (see image). Please contact me with any questions or for additional images. I would be happy to send. If you notice any imperfections and are unhappy with your item please give me an opportunity to rectify the problem prior to leaving feedback. I strive for 5 star ratings on all my sales. Thank you for your interest. Pillar prints, or ko-tanzaku, are a format that creates beautiful challenges for the artist and their compositions. In this print Yoshimoto Gesso utilizes the 3? Wide by 13? Tall format to capture a scene of a man suspended in a basked on the side of a cliff tending to the roots of a maple tree. This print is Hasegawa Catalog Number 1527 from the series “Japanese Scenes on Tanzaku”. Vertical, narrow prints are a by-product of traditional Japanese architecture, which offered very few solid wall surfaces. Many times, the only solid surface available for the hanging of pictures, were the structural posts which held up the roof. “Pillar prints” became a genre unto themselves and were referred to in Japanese as hashira-e or tanzaku. Yoshimoto Gesso is known for a large number of landscape and kacho-e (images of birds and flowers) designs published by Hasegawa and Nishinomiya, but little else is biographically known about him. These designs were very well crafted with artistic compositions made presumably for the export/foreign market. His work is very painterly, leading some to believe that he was a trained painter whose works were commissioned, and then transformed into woodblocks by the professional carvers and printers at Hasegawa and Nishinomiya, but that is speculation.
