It all began one evening when I got totally engrossed in viewing Japanese woodblock prints, especially the night scenes by Kawase Hasui. Hasui was one of Japan’s most prominent and prolific printmakers, who died in 1957. He created landscapes that beautifully merged humans⎼ their homes, boats, shrines, castles, and temples⎼ into the land around them.
I was looking through several paintings and when one stood out, I’d imagine myself in the depicted scene or sit with the mood the print and my seeing of it created.
…Borrowing from the novelist Graham Greene, “Hatred is just a failure of imagination.” The unkind person can’t imagine the suffering of another. Art can open the eyes of imagination. It can teach us not only to see more of the beauty in life; it can help us understand how we construct the world we perceive, so we can be more conscious of what world we are creating.
Imagination Is a Brush We Can Use to Paint Our Way Anywhere, Even Home
It all began one evening when I got totally engrossed in viewing Japanese woodblock prints, especially the night scenes by Kawase Hasui. Hasui was one of Japan’s most prominent and prolific printmakers, who died in 1957. He created landscapes that beautifully merged humans⎼ their homes, boats, shrines, castles, and temples⎼ into the land around them.
I was looking through several paintings and when one stood out, I’d imagine myself in the depicted scene or sit with the mood the print and my seeing of it created.
…Borrowing from the novelist Graham Greene, “Hatred is just a failure of imagination.” The unkind person can’t imagine the suffering of another. Art can open the eyes of imagination. It can teach us not only to see more of the beauty in life; it can help us understand how we construct the world we perceive, so we can be more conscious of what world we are creating.
**Published in the fall, 2022, by Education that Inspires, The Great Days, and earlier by The Good Men Project.