Refugee Shack

Following the 1923 earthquake, displaced Tokyo residents constructed makeshift shelters (barakku) from salvaged timber, corrugated iron, woven matting, and tarpaulins on the burned-out grounds of parks, temples, and parade fields, with concentrations at Ueno, Hibiya, and the Imperial Palace plaza. A print on this subject would depict one such structure, typically a low lean-to with a family arranged around its opening, perhaps a cooking pot or salvaged household goods at the threshold. Sengai's grounding in nihonga brushwork under Tomioka Eisen shows in the rendering of garments and faces, while the architectural improvisation of the shack itself invites the carver to translate rough-hewn planks and tied joints into keyblock line. Such subjects extended the Edo precedent of disaster prints (saigai-zu and namazu-e) into the photographic age, and they form part of a documentary current in Taisho mokuhanga that ran parallel to the more aestheticized shin-hanga and sosaku-hanga movements.