Cat

Cat presents a feline subject rendered in mokuhanga, the multi-block woodcut technique central to Japanese print traditions. Cats had long featured in [ukiyo-e](/glossary/ukiyo-e) — Utagawa Kuniyoshi, whose style Fukami is known to have referenced, made cats a recurring motif both as standalone studies and as anthropomorphized characters. A standalone cat print typically isolates the animal against a flat or minimally inflected ground, allowing the carver and printer to concentrate on the contour line and the gradations of fur. Areas of [bokashi](/glossary/bokashi) (tonal gradation produced by wiping pigment unevenly across the woodblock) are commonly used to suggest the soft transitions of a cat's coat without recourse to outline alone. Within Fukami's broader body of cat-themed work, this print fits a strand of twentieth-century printmaking in which traditional carving and [baren](/glossary/baren)-burnished impression were applied to intimate domestic subjects rather than the historical or warrior themes of earlier ukiyo-e.