Kamisaka Sekka

Kamisaka Sekka and the Rinpa Revival

Kamisaka Sekka worked in Kyoto at a time when Japanese art was rapidly absorbing Western influences. Rather than follow that current, he looked backwards — to the decorative tradition founded by Tawaraya Sotatsu and refined by Ogata Korin. The Rinpa school favoured bold outlines, flat colour fields, and nature rendered as pattern rather than description. Sekka took those principles and applied them with a modern eye, creating woodblock prints that feel both ancient and startlingly contemporary.

His three-volume masterwork Momoyogusa (A World of Things, 1909–10) contains a hundred colour prints covering flowers, birds, landscapes, and mythological subjects. The compositions are striking for their economy — a single crane against gold, cherry blossoms dissolving into geometric abstraction, a white phoenix rendered in pure line and negative space. These are not illustrations of nature but distillations of it, reduced to essential form and colour. The flatness and decorative boldness of Sekka's prints have drawn comparisons to Art Nouveau and early twentieth-century graphic design, yet they are rooted firmly in a Japanese tradition stretching back three hundred years.

Prints from Momoyogusa — Format and Material

Sekka's flat, graphic style translates exceptionally well to fine art paper, where the clean colour separations and precise outlines remain razor-sharp. The matte surface ensures that the interplay between saturated pigment and empty space — central to the Rinpa aesthetic — is preserved without glare or distortion. Paper prints are available in A3, 50×70 cm, 70×100 cm, and A0. For framing, oak complements the warm gold tones in many Momoyogusa prints, while black frames emphasise the graphic boldness of the compositions. Walnut brown is a third option for warmer interiors.

On canvas, the cotton weave adds a subtle texture that gives the flat colour fields a handmade, tactile quality — closer to the feel of the original woodblock impressions printed on washi paper. The surface grain softens hard edges just enough to add warmth without sacrificing the clarity of the design. Canvas prints come in 30×40 cm, 50×70 cm, and 70×100 cm, with an optional floating frame for a gallery finish.

Japanese Decorative Art at Kuriosis

Sekka sits within a rich tradition of Japanese printmaking represented across the Kuriosis collection. For atmospheric landscapes and dramatic light effects, explore Kobayashi Kiyochika. For the broader ukiyo-e tradition, Hiroshige and Hokusai offer complementary perspectives on nature and place. For hand-coloured Meiji-era photography, see Kusakabe Kimbei. All prints are produced in our Berlin studio using archival pigment inks rated for 100+ years.