Landscape Libra

A companion print within Hodaka's zodiac landscape series, "Landscape Libra" takes the sign of the scales — air element, autumnal equinox, balance — as its organizing reference. Compositions associated with Libra in such symbolic series typically resolve around horizontal symmetries or paired forms, the visual equivalent of weighing or equilibrium, rendered through Hodaka's vocabulary of flat color planes and overlaid geometric incident. The mokuhanga technique allows for the precise alignment of multiple blocks required to build a balanced composition, with kentō registration marks ensuring the accumulated impressions land cleanly. Pigment choice — atmospheric blues, ochres, or whites suited to Libra's air associations — would distinguish this print from its more saturated companion sheets such as Scorpio. The series belongs to Hodaka's mature period in which he integrated Western symbolic systems with the traditional Japanese woodblock craft inherited from the Yoshida family workshop, producing prints that read simultaneously as mokuhanga and as participants in the international postwar print revival.