Flower Spirit

Flower Spirit (花の精, hana no sei) takes up the conceit, common in Japanese folklore and Buddhist-inflected art, that a flower possesses an animate presence — a small kami or spirit residing within the bloom. In Akiyama's hands the subject is treated in his characteristic naïve, folk-art idiom rather than the refined kachō-e tradition of Hokusai or Koson: forms are flattened and outlined in a soft, hand-cut keyblock, color blocks are registered slightly loosely, and the [washi](/glossary/washi) often shows the impressed grain of the [baren](/glossary/baren). Tonal modulation tends to be achieved through restrained [bokashi](/glossary/bokashi) gradations rather than virtuoso shading. The print belongs to the same devotional-folk register as his monks, Jizō figures, and owls, where sentient nature and Buddhist sensibility overlap. As a second-generation sōsaku-hanga artist trained originally in suiboku-ga and oil painting before turning to mokuhanga, Akiyama brought a painter's economy of mark to the block, and works such as this exemplify his integration of brushwork sensibility with the carved surface.