Sun and Cat

Sun and Cat pairs a feline subject with a celestial motif, a compositional pairing that draws on the long tradition of cats in Japanese woodblock printmaking established in the late Edo period by Utagawa Kuniyoshi, whose influence Fukami's documented work reflects. The juxtaposition of an animal study with a sun disc suggests a print organized around a few bold flat shapes against negative space, a compositional approach well suited to mokuhanga, where the carved block favors silhouette and clear contour over modeled volume. A sun motif in this context is typically rendered as a solid disc, often in vermillion or a warm [bokashi](/glossary/bokashi) gradation achieved by wiping pigment across the woodblock before pressing the [washi](/glossary/washi) with a [baren](/glossary/baren). As one of several cat subjects in Fukami's small documented body of work, the print situates the artist within the strand of twentieth-century printmaking that continued to mine the iconography Kuniyoshi made popular: domestic cats observed with humor and affection rather than as warrior or mythological subjects.