Landscape Scorpio

Part of a series in which Hodaka pairs the conventional landscape category with the twelve signs of the Western zodiac, this print under the sign of Scorpio draws on color, form, and atmospheric weight associated with the sign's traditional attributes — the autumnal water element, intensity, and a darker palette — without literal pictorial reference. The series strategy reflects Hodaka's habit of overlaying schematic systems onto observed or invented landscape, treating the zodiac as a structuring device rather than an iconographic program. Mokuhanga's layered registration permits the kind of overlapping color fields the series demands: deep blues and reds, often stamped with smaller geometric or symbolic motifs derived from astrological notation. The zodiac landscape series sits within Hodaka's broader engagement with non-Japanese symbol systems — Pre-Columbian glyphs, Egyptian hieroglyphs, alchemical signs — that he absorbed as visual vocabulary distinct from the indigenous motifs earlier Yoshida generations drew upon, marking his particular international orientation within the family lineage.