Sailing Boats: Mist (1926) – Hiroshi Yoshida

A high definition print reproduction of "Sailing Boats: Mist", a Japanese woodblock print by Hiroshi Yoshida (1926)

✓ Thick, matte, museum-quality paper
✓ Printing from ultra-high-definition images
✓ Fast worldwide shipping in a protective cardboard tube
✓ Restored colors faithful to the original work

Fog has settled over the Inland Sea. A sailboat lies at anchor, its small tender tied alongside, and its sails have turned the same soft grey as the sky. Behind it, a second boat is no more than a ghost, barely drawn in the mist. Only the reflections, darker and more solid than the boat itself, anchor the scene on the still water. It is the quietest image of the series, and perhaps the most modern: an almost monochrome composition where colour gives way to atmosphere.

This print belongs to Yoshida's celebrated Inland Sea series (Seto Naikai shū), published in 1926. For six of its prints, Yoshida used exactly the same woodblocks, changing only the colours to show the same boats at different times of day and in different weather. Compare it with Sailing Boats: Night: the same boat, the same sails, a completely different world.

The left margin carries the series title, the date and the title "Sailing Boats, Mist", next to the red jizuri seal ("self-printed") that marks the prints made under Yoshida's own supervision.

Japanese artist Hiroshi Yoshida (1876–1950) was a master of shin-hanga, the "new prints" movement that renewed the ukiyo-e tradition with Western light and perspective.

Discover all our Hiroshi Yoshida prints, or browse our full collection of Japanese woodblock prints.