Untitled Lakeside by Eva Pietzcker - Davidson Galleries

Untitled Lakeside continues Pietzcker's sustained engagement with bodies of still water, presenting a view at the edge of a lake without specifying a particular location through its title. The composition likely sets shoreline vegetation or a near bank against the flat plane of the water, with a far shore reading as a low band on the horizon. Mokuhanga is suited to such subjects because broad areas of water can be printed as unmodulated color or as delicately graded [bokashi](/glossary/bokashi) where pigment thins toward the center of the lake. The water-based inks soak into dampened [washi](/glossary/washi) and produce the soft luminosity characteristic of the technique. Lakes are a continuing motif in Pietzcker's body of work, treated as sites of quiet observation rather than dramatic incident, in keeping with the meditative tradition of landscape prints that descends from Hokusai and Hiroshige through the [shin-hanga](/glossary/shin-hanga) generation. The choice to leave the print untitled suggests an interest in the type of place rather than a specific identified one.