The rendering of Korea’s Chongsokjong Pavilion by Kawase Hasui is a beautifully composed and slightly surreal piece of landscape art that manages to be realistic and otherworldly at the same time. One of 13 eye-popping Hasui works featured in a new exhibit at the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, the serene woodblock print is also, Michael Taylor says, slyly political.

“Korea had been occupied by the Japanese since 1910,” says the VMFA’s artistic director and chief curator, “but Hasui doesn’t give you any sense of that. I think he was really captivated by the natural beauty of Korea, the temples, landscapes and pavilions. And that’s what you see. You don’t see images of protests or anything like that. But it is a political statement because he’s really showing you the kind of Korean culture that, at that time, was under threat from Japan.”

“Views of Korea: Hasui’s Journey and Japanese Prints” opens Nov. 22 in the VMFA’s Mary Ann Frable Works on Paper Gallery. The display is the latest in a rotating series that started in 2011, spotlighting the museum’s formidable collection of Hasui’s work. Thanks to the patronage of collectors René and Carolyn Balcer, who began donating their Hasui holdings to the museum in 2006, the VMFA holds the largest collection of the artist’s creative output in the U.S. Its previous Hasui exhibit was “Producing the Picturesque: Watercolors and Collaborative Prints,” which closed in May.

“Every six months or so, we rotate prints from the collection, 12-14 prints at a time,” says Taylor. “Li Jian, our beloved and now retired curator of East Asian art, had looked at the collection and thought about this theme, and this is her final selection.” Rather than attempt a chronological overview of the artist’s long career, the changing exhibits have focused on different periods and themes found in his art, he says. Eight of the 13 works featured in “Views of Korea” have never been exhibited before.

A national treasure

Hasui (1883-1957) was a hugely-influential Japanese artist, a leader in what was known as the Shin-Hanga (“new prints”) movement, which rejected the urbanization of Japan and the influence of Western culture on Japanese art. In 1956, he was named a Japanese Living National Treasure, the most prestigious recognition an artist could garner in post-war Japan. He was the first to receive the honor.

“He was a beloved figure,” says Taylor. “I would say his stature would be akin, in America, to someone like Edward Hopper, who was a great printmaker, or Thomas Hart Benton. These painters and printmakers were modern but they were also very accessible to the general public.” Hasui’s prints even became popular in America, where his work was widely viewed.

The artist also, according to the VMFA’s notes, “took numerous sketching trips throughout Japan. In 1939, invited by friends, he traveled to the Korean Peninsula where he captured natural wonders and historical sites, sketching with abounding enthusiasm and creativity. As he did for hundreds of works, he used these sketches to then create woodblock prints of fine lines, vivid colors, and delicate depictions of light and shadow.”

A diminutive and short-sighted man who relied on thick eyeglasses, Hasui was constantly on the road looking for new subjects, Taylor says. “Mainly in Japan. He was always searching for subject matter and the scenes he found in Korea weren’t dissimilar to his [other] work. He loved Buddhist temples, mountains, because they are great subjects for printmaking. What’s also interesting is that he’s a master of different seasons and different times of year. He can make a print or a painting of a building in snow or in summer.”

The artist, in fact, was nicknamed by his peers as the ‘snow artist’ because of his icy landscapes. “He became inspired by the four seasons and the consequences of the weather” writes the Modern Tokyo Times in a 2022 appreciation. “Hasui’s winter scenes stand out – along with his delightful art connected to the late evening to nightfall period. Hence, Hasui utilizes rain, snow, the sun, the moon, and natural phenomena in his art.”

The VMFA has so much Hasui on hand, from so many eras of his journey, that it will take years to properly exhibit them. The museum’s collection contains more than 600 pieces, Taylor says. “We’ve got a long way to go.”

“Views of Korea: Hasui’s Journey and Japanese Prints” at the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts Nov. 22-June 23, 2025. Free. https://vmfa.museum