unsupported train spitzack woodblock woodcut mokuhanga print printmaking washi seattle art

A transportation image that pulls against expectation: a train rendered without its supporting infrastructure—no tracks, no bridge, no embankment. The image likely treats the train as a floating object, suspended either through composition or through omitted context. Trains entered Japanese printmaking in the Meiji period, when artists like Inoue Yasuji and Kobayashi Kiyochika depicted the new locomotive technology arriving in the modernizing nation. Spitzack's unsupported train stands at a remove from those documentary prints, treating the locomotive as a graphic element rather than a record of progress. The print would rely on flat color fields, careful registration of the train's body across multiple blocks, and possibly bokashi gradations to suggest motion or atmosphere. Working out of Seattle, Spitzack participates in the contemporary American mokuhanga movement that has reframed the medium for subjects beyond its traditional domain. His selection at the 2024 International Mokuhanga Conference in Echizen, Japan, signals that this experimental, observational approach has found recognition within the medium's traditional center.