toucans toucan woodland park zoo spitzack woodblock woodcut mokuhanga print printmaking washi seattle art
- Image courtesy of
- Artist website (Charles Spitzack)
This print belongs to the [kacho-e](/glossary/kacho-e) tradition of bird-and-flower imagery, here transposed to the captive subjects of Seattle's Woodland Park Zoo. Toucans — tropical birds with characteristically large, brightly colored bills — offer compositional possibilities suited to mokuhanga: a reduced palette of strong color blocks balanced against the darker plumage of the body, with the bill providing a focal point for keyblock detailing. The zoo setting introduces a layer of contemporary observation, distinguishing the work from the wild-bird studies of artists such as Ohara Koson while drawing on the same printmaking conventions of negative space and selective detailing. [Bokashi](/glossary/bokashi) gradations may model the rounded volume of the bill or the dappled shade of an aviary canopy. Spitzack's treatment of zoo wildlife reflects a strain within American mokuhanga where local environments — including managed natural spaces — replace the canonical subjects of Edo-period printmaking. The print sits within his broader engagement with avian and naturalistic subjects applied to Pacific Northwest sites of encounter.
Mokuhanga (Japanese woodblock)
![[Garden of] Taj Mahal, No. 1 (Taji Maharu no niwa, dai ichi) by Hiroshi Yoshida](https://www.artic.edu/iiif/2/230993a7-d4f0-c979-c267-127d48e1ef1c/full/843,/0/default.jpg)
Taji Maharu no niwa, dai ichi
1931
Color woodblock print; oban
January 1938
Woodblock print, ink and color on paper
1938
Color woodblock print; oban
10/70, 1966
Woodblock print
toucans toucan woodland park zoo spitzack woodblock woodcut mokuhanga print printmaking washi seattle art was created by Charles Spitzack.
toucans toucan woodland park zoo spitzack woodblock woodcut mokuhanga print printmaking washi seattle art depicts gardens and trees.