Akasaka Palace
Artist/Culture
Hiratsuka, Un'ichi
(Japanese, 1895–1997)
Date1945
Mediumwooblock print; ink and color on paper
Dimensions20 x 28 cm (7 7/8 x 11 in.)
ClassificationsPrints
Credit LineMembers' Council Fund
Object number1987.79.4
DescriptionSpared by the Great Kanto Earthquake, the Akasaka Palace is emblematic of late-Meiji-period attitudes about imperial architecture. Although planning for a domicile for Crown Prince Haru began in 1897, Japan's victory over Russia in 1905 confirmed that it had become a world power whose future emperor should be housed in a splendid palace. The principal architect, Katayama Tokuma, looked to European palaces as models and chose what he considered to be late-eighteenth-century French style for his edifice. It is actually an eclectic mix of elements-Renaissance, Rococo and neo-Baroque. The official decoration committee was led by Kuroda Seiki and other artists who had lived in Paris; as a result, the interior was thoroughly French. To the Meiji emperor the palace was a shocking extravagance, and neither the crown prince, nor his son Hirohito, ever lived there. It was used as intended only once during the Taisho - -Emperor's reign when Edward, Prince of Wales (the future Duke of Windsor), stayed there forten days in 1922.
This winter view of the familiar and splendid landmark has an air of desolation. Set back behind wrought-iron gates and at the end ok a long, snow-covered driveway, the palace conveys a feeling of emptiness that is echoed by the bare trees and wide, open foreground.
Hiratsuka was a leader of the Creative Print movement and a teacher of those artists who wanted to carve and print. Arriving in Tokyo in 1915 to study oil painting, he learned block carving under Igami Bonkotsu, who required that he acquire all the techniques necessary to reproduce ukiyo-e. Interested in self-expression, he showed two multicolored landscape prints that demonstrated this viewpoint at the Third Nikakai Exhibition in 1916-two years before the Japan Creative Print Association was formed. His life and career were dedicated to making prints and teaching printmaking.
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