Raspberry

A decorative study of raspberry — fruit, leaves, and stems — handled in Sugiura's characteristic flat, posterized manner. Designs in this idiom usually present the plant in partial profile, emphasizing the silhouette of the compound leaf and the clustered drupelets of the berry rather than naturalistic shading. Color is laid in unmodulated areas with sharp registration, the woodblock medium suited to the broad chromatic planes the design requires; bokashi gradation, when present in Sugiura's work, is used sparingly and in service of pattern rather than illusion. The choice of raspberry as subject reflects the broader Taishō-era interest in Western botanical imagery alongside traditional Japanese kachō (bird-and-flower) motifs, a hybrid sensibility Sugiura cultivated after his European travels. Plates of this kind functioned both as standalone decorative prints and as reference material for textile, ceramic, and packaging designers — Sugiura conceived his zuan output as practical pattern resources for a modernizing commercial culture, drawing on his teaching role at the Tokyo School of Fine Arts and later the Imperial Art School.