A red owl

A red owl is a [kacho-e](/glossary/kacho-e) (bird-and-flower) subject, a genre with deep roots in Japanese printmaking and a sustained presence in twentieth-century mokuhanga. The title's specification of red is unusual — owls are more often rendered in browns, greys, and ochres — and suggests either an interpretive colour choice or an unusually saturated impression of the bird's plumage. A single-bird composition typically isolates the owl on a branch or against a plain ground, with the keyblock carrying the contour and feather pattern and additional blocks supplying the body colour and any background tone. [Bokashi](/glossary/bokashi) gradation may be used to soften the transition from the bird's silhouette into the surrounding space. Within the kacho-e lineage that runs from Hokusai and Hiroshige through to twentieth-century practitioners, Fukami's owl participates in the genre's preference for a single, attentively observed creature rendered through the layered economy of the woodblock medium.