A painting titled 'Gulf of America' showing a black metal fence, a green plant, and a blue sky with distant sailboats.

Titled Gulf of America, this print depicts a black metal fence in the immediate foreground, a green plant, and a blue sky containing distant sailboats. The composition layers the picture plane sharply — the iron railing at the front, vegetation directly behind it, and an open expanse of sea and sky beyond, with the small sailboats serving as scale markers for the deep recession. The work establishes a structural tension between confinement and openness, a device with parallels in Edo-period prints that frame views through architectural foregrounds. The blue sky likely employs [bokashi](/glossary/bokashi) shading achieved by wiping the block before each impression. The metal fence's repeating vertical bars present a carving challenge requiring precise alignment of fine lines in the keyblock. Spitzack's mokuhanga technique transposes this contemporary American coastal subject through the inherited Japanese woodblock vocabulary of flat color planes, sharply delineated edges, and graduated tonal fields applied through hand-rubbed [baren](/glossary/baren) impressions on [washi](/glossary/washi).