Den japanska träsnittsrörelsen sosaku hanga utgör ett betydande men föga uppmärksammat konsthistoriskt kapitel. Under dess aktiva år från 1900-talets början fram till 1960-talet, introducerade den radikala förändringar hos Japans träsnittspraktik, samt kom att ur flera aspekter exemplifiera världshistorisk växelverkan. Östasiatiska museets drygt femtio sosaku hanga-föremål utgör en av de få offentliga samlingarna av rörelsen i Sverige. Kunskapen om och förmedlingen av denna samling har dock varit begränsade. I denna vetenskapliga rapport presenteras därför en grundlig studie av museets sosaku hanga-samling; dess omfattning, förvärv och proveniens, samt nyligen utförda exponeringar. Studien lägger således en grund för en framtida aktivering av samlingen som kan gynna institutionens uppdrag och vision. Rapporten utfördes i samband med en praktik på Östasiatiska museet under hösten 2020.

The purpose of this essay is to evaluate whether or not saintly biographies can provide readers with information about the saints’ origin in regard to people and geographical locations. This is achieved by analyzing St Erik (1125-1160), St Katarina of Vadstena (1332-1381) and St Birgitta of Vadstena (1303-1373) printed by Steffen Arndes in Lübeck 1492 in his legend Das Leuend der Hÿlghen, which are put in juxtaposition with three saint biographies written in Sweden. The Swedish counterparts of St Erik and St Katarina are written in a modern adaption of Ett forn-svenskt legendarium (1874) whereas St Birgitta’s saintly biography is taken from Tryggve Lundén's Svenska Helgon (1972). Both the German biographies and woodcuts are objects of interest in this analysis to determine the intermediality between text and depiction as well as Steffen Arndes’s selection of content in his adaptations. Arndes’s selection, both in text end woodcuts, is the key to determine what content might have been commonly known and therefore not included in his adaptations.   The results of the study is that Steffen Arndes’s adaptations of the saint biographies reveal some details left untouched, namely one of St Erik's and St Katarina's attributes, possibly implying that these are part of the common discourse and therefore somewhat redundant. The questions, however, exceed the answers as the research resulted in more questions to be dealt with in further research.