Still Time ; Kiyoshi Hasegawa1891 – 1980

Hasegawa Kiyoshi was a Japanese artist and engraver who spent most of his life in France. He relocated to Paris at 27 in 1918 and lived there for over 60 years. Though he wanted to keep his Japanese nationality all through his life, he never returned to Japan and died at 89.

After he moved to Paris, he described nature from the perspective that “every tree and bush” has got life within it. He developed his own copperplate printing techniques and revived Mezzotint printing. He combined this European technique with his Japanese sensibilities to great effect. Particularly he found great variation in the colour black, 7 shades of black. He found seven varieties of black in Mezzotint. This work; Still life “Time” in 1969 is his complete style of manière noire. Tiny robin in centre is himself, the circle in the back is the metaphor of the balance in nature.

Monochrome painting has an important place in Nippon art. In Japan the use of black ink and empty space is employed to evoke an image beyond what is on the canvas. This way the viewer is given the room to bring colour onto the canvas and fill the gaps with their imagination. Hasegawa took this style and applied it in his Mezzotint prints. He found power and depth through his subtle and deft use of the black ink. This is how he was able to conquer his share of eternity

He was strongly influenced by Albrecht Dürer, Dufy ,Picasso and Edouard Goerg. He admired Odilon Redon. Mezzotint used to be used to copy portrait paintings until the 19^th century when cameras became widespread and mezzotint techniques died out.

In his younger days he was mesmerised by the mysticism in European art but gradually he became focused on trying to express the mystery of nature itself in his art. He would observe each twig and leaf carefully. He once greeted a tree, saying “Bonjour “ while taking a walk and recalled hearing the voice of the tree greeting him back “Bonjour“. In this sense, he separated copperplate printing from mystery of European religion into art itself. Practically he upgraded the disused practical mezzotint method into art.