Fishing port, early spring

Two motorized fishing boats sit beached on a lavender-grey harbor apron, their masts strung with long, wind-whipped banners in red, indigo, purple, green, and yellow bearing white kanji, alongside a Japanese national flag with its red sun disc. The nearer boat's hull is painted white with a bold black zigzag stripe and orange trim, its stern lettered "松□丸" ("...matsu maru"), while the second boat behind carries a green cargo net or produce and blue-white hull markings; a low wooden jetty, distant hillside houses, and a flat blue sea and sky fill the background. This woodblock print, "Fishing port, early spring" by Fumio Kitaoka (mokuhanga, year unknown), renders the scene in flat, hard-edged color planes with strong cast shadows on the purple ground.