Black night - Ginza

Black night — Ginza is a rare urban subject within Funasaka's predominantly abstract body of work, depicting Tokyo's Ginza district under nocturnal conditions. The print likely relies on a dominant black ground — the Japanese sumi-derived darkness that prints particularly densely on washi via baren — punctuated by the bright commercial lighting characteristic of Ginza's avenues. Night scenes in mokuhanga depend on careful tonal layering: deep solid blacks established in early impressions, with later blocks introducing the contrasting whites, reds, and warm yellows of signage and reflected light. Ginza, redeveloped after the Pacific War as Tokyo's principal shopping and entertainment district, was a recurrent subject for sōsaku-hanga and shin-hanga artists alike, though Funasaka's treatment would have brought his geometric sensibility to the urban motif. The work sits alongside his small group of identifiable subject prints and offers a counterpoint to the lemon, hole, and vertical-mark compositions that otherwise dominate his catalogue. It demonstrates the same emphasis on flat shape and reduced palette seen in his abstract output, applied here to an observed metropolitan scene.