Nishikigi No XXXXVIII

Nishikigi — winged spindle, Euonymus alatus — derives its Japanese name, meaning brocade tree, from the crimson-to-magenta autumn foliage that covers the plant for several weeks each fall, accompanied by small four-lobed seed capsules that split to reveal orange-red arils. The forty-eighth print in Ikeda's series would document this peak-color phase, demanding from the printer a carefully calibrated palette of warm reds capable of registering both the broad masses of foliage and the discrete clusters of fruit without flattening into a single tone. The corky wings running along the young branches — the morphological feature that gives the species its Latin epithet alatus — provide a textural counterpoint rendered through fine keyblock cutting. Within Ikeda's wider catalogue, nishikigi joins maple and other autumn-color subjects as part of the koyo category, a season that has rivalled spring blossom in Japanese aesthetic attention since the classical period.