Dutch Couple

A figure print depicting a man and woman in Dutch dress, part of Okuyama's sustained engagement with European subjects that also produced his Van Gogh-source prints. The motif of foreign figures in Dutch costume connects to a longer Japanese tradition: nanban byobu of the late sixteenth century recorded Portuguese and Dutch traders at Nagasaki, and Edo-period Nagasaki-e prints continued the iconography after Dutch traders were confined to Dejima. Okuyama's modern treatment uses the flat color planes and clean key-block contour of mokuhanga to render costume detail — coat, cap, collar, skirt — without atmospheric modeling, against a plain or lightly toned ground. Within his body of work the print sits with his other foreign-source and figure subjects rather than the Tohoku landscapes for which he is principally known, and reflects the wider sosaku-hanga interest in extending the woodblock medium beyond its inherited iconography.