Dogwood 9

Dogwood 9 is the ninth entry in Namiki's hanamizuki series, which extends his arboreal vocabulary to a tree introduced to Japan from North America in 1915 and now widely planted in gardens and along urban avenues. The print centers on the open, four-bract flowers of the dogwood arrayed across horizontal branches, a habit well suited to the flat, layered registrations of mokuhanga. Each color block is hand-carved and printed with water-based pigments on [washi](/glossary/washi) using the [baren](/glossary/baren), with [bokashi](/glossary/bokashi) gradations carrying the background tone and lifting the pale bracts into relief. The choice of subject reflects Namiki's broader practice of isolating a single tree against a calm, atmospheric ground, here adapted to a flowering ornamental rather than the pines, cherries, and broadleaf forest specimens that dominate the Tree Scene series. Within the [sosaku-hanga](/glossary/sosaku-hanga) tradition, in which the artist is sole designer, carver, and printer, the numbered dogwood prints function as repeated meditations on the same species across light conditions and stages of bloom.