departure spitzack woodblock woodcut mokuhanga print printmaking washi seattle art

A narrative title pointing to a leaving — figures at a station, a doorway, a port, or a parting moment. Departure has been a recurring theme in Japanese woodblock printing from Hokusai's travel scenes through Hiroshige's Tokaido stations, where the act of leaving is visualized as much through landscape as through figures. Spitzack's contemporary mokuhanga treatment translates the theme into present circumstance, using water-based pigments on [washi](/glossary/washi) to render emotional atmosphere through [bokashi](/glossary/bokashi) gradations rather than through dramatic value contrast. The medium's slow, sequential process — drawing, carving multiple blocks, registering each impression — itself enacts the deliberation a departure carries. As an American mokuhanga artist working within a sustained practice, Spitzack uses the medium not as exotic surface effect but as an apt technical-emotional fit for the subject. The print belongs to the body of work that established Spitzack within the international mokuhanga community in 2024.