Dancing Shiva (Memory of India)

Nagase is one of the major artists in the 'Sôsaku hanga' or the Creative Print movement, the 20th century Japanese modern printmaking in which the artists, inspired by the modern artistic movements in the West, sought self-expression through the medium of print as opposed to using the medium as a means of reproducing images.

Nagase is often associated with Hasegawa Kiyoshi, who worked with him in designing the front pages of the magazine 'Kamen' (1913-15) and who in 1918 went to Paris where he established himself as a distinguished print artist. While in Japan they worked in similar, expressionist and evocative styles. In 1929 he travelled to Paris where he produced prints and showed them both in Paris and Japan. He returned to Japan in 1936. This work belongs to his famous series based on this trip through Asia and the Middle East ending in Paris.

Nagase worked in woodcuts and developed a range of distinct techinques of his own, such as printing in gold on indigo paper. Another technique he exploited in many of his works is to give the lines the characteristics of brushstrokes, and this print is a good example of his technique. It also shows a curious cultural misinterpretation: the Indian god Siva has been turned into female figure.

Asian Art Dept.
AGNSW 16 October 2001