Untitled (inuzuka-taisui)

An untitled shin-hanga woodblock print by Inuzuka Taisui, consistent with the artist's known catalog of botanical and nature subjects from the late 1920s and early 1930s. The shin-hanga production system that Taisui worked within was deliberately conservative in its methods, preserving Edo-period techniques that had been refined over centuries. Cherry wood blocks, water-based pigments, handmade washi paper, and the baren burnishing tool were the same materials and instruments used by printers working for Hokusai and Hiroshige a century earlier. What changed in the shin-hanga era was the artistic sensibility applied to these traditional methods: a greater interest in naturalistic light, atmospheric tone, and the kind of observed detail that reflected the influence of Western art and photography on modern Japanese visual culture.