{"product_id":"hokusai-bullfinch-weeping-cherry-giclee-print","title":"Katsushika Hokusai – Bullfinch and Weeping Cherry, c. 1834 | Giclée Print","description":"\u003cp\u003eA bullfinch hangs upside down from a branch of weeping cherry, and the whole sheet is the colour of a night sky. This is one of the small bird-and-flower prints Hokusai made around 1834, in the same years and for the same publisher as \u003cem\u003eThirty-six Views of Mount Fuji\u003c\/em\u003e.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eThe blue is the point.\u003c\/strong\u003e It is Prussian blue — \u003cem\u003ebero-ai\u003c\/em\u003e, a synthetic pigment imported through Nagasaki and, by the early 1830s, cheap enough to lay across a whole sheet. Japanese printers had never had a blue that held its depth without fading. It is the same pigment that carries \u003cem\u003eUnder the Wave off Kanagawa\u003c\/em\u003e, and here Hokusai spends it on the ground rather than the subject: the bird and the blossom are almost uncoloured, and the sky does the work.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eThe birds in this group are not decorative. Each is a species a Japanese reader would name at a glance — here \u003cem\u003euso\u003c\/em\u003e, the bullfinch — paired with the plant that flowers at the same moment.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eWhat this is.\u003c\/strong\u003e A giclée reproduction printed with pigment inks from the Art Institute of Chicago's own open-access photograph of the sheet. It is not a nineteenth-century impression and is not sold as one.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eScale\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\n\u003cem\u003eOriginal: 25.4 × 19.1 cm \/ 10 × 7.5 in — colour woodblock print, chūban, Art Institute of Chicago\u003c\/em\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003e27 × 35 cm \/ 10.6 × 13.8 in\u003c\/strong\u003e — original size, 1:1. Image 18.87 × 25.40 cm.\u003cbr\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003e40 × 50 cm \/ 15.7 × 19.7 in\u003c\/strong\u003e — enlarged, 1.72× original. Image 32.39 × 43.60 cm.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eWhy the small sheet is 27 × 35 and not 30 × 40.\u003c\/strong\u003e A chūban is a small sheet — about the size of a sheet of A4 turned upright. At 1:1 it needs a sheet that sits close around it, or the picture floats. 27 × 35 leaves a border of four centimetres at the sides and fits the standard 11 × 14 inch frame.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eWhy the large sheet stops at 1.72×.\u003c\/strong\u003e House ceiling for line work is 1.8×. Enlarge a woodblock print further and you enlarge the cut line itself — the carver's stroke starts to look like a drawn one. The 40 × 50 sheet takes the picture as far as that rule allows.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eA note on the trim.\u003c\/strong\u003e The sheet was cut close to the printed block, and the museum's scan carries a few millimetres of scanner ground around it. That ground is removed; the printed block is reproduced whole, edge to edge, including the signature and publisher's seal at the upper right.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eProvenance\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\nKatsushika Hokusai 葛飾北斎 (Japanese, 1760–1849), \u003cem\u003eBullfinch and Weeping Cherry (Uso, shidarezakura)\u003c\/em\u003e, from an untitled series of flowers and birds, c. 1834.\u003cbr\u003e\nColour woodblock print, chūban; 25.4 × 19.1 cm.\u003cbr\u003e\nArt Institute of Chicago, Clarence Buckingham Collection, Acc. No. 1925.3367.\u003cbr\u003e\nPublic domain. The museum publishes its photograph under CC0.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eThe print\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\nGiclée on 200 gsm FSC-certified fine art paper, twelve pigment inks. White border, optical centre. The colour of the museum's file is kept, not corrected. Unframed. Shipped rolled in a tube.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Museartis","offers":[{"title":"27x35 cm \/ 11x14″","offer_id":65771551850845,"sku":"MUS-025-2735","price":49.0,"currency_code":"CHF","in_stock":true},{"title":"40x50 cm \/ 16x20″","offer_id":65771551883613,"sku":"MUS-025-4050","price":59.0,"currency_code":"CHF","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1102\/7139\/8237\/files\/MUS-025_Bullfinch_plate.jpg?v=1788270905","url":"https:\/\/museartis.com\/products\/hokusai-bullfinch-weeping-cherry-giclee-print","provider":"Museartis","version":"1.0","type":"link"}