Sample work 02 — flower / tree (cedar woodblock series)
by Teruo Isomi
- Medium:
- Woodblock print on washi (cedar boards)
- Image courtesy of
- Hanganet — Prints Arts Knowledge Base
by Teruo Isomi
The pairing of 'flower' and 'tree' in the title points to a botanical subject in the [kacho-e](/glossary/kacho-e) lineage, reworked through Isomi's cedar-plank vocabulary. Rather than the controlled multi-block color of [nishiki-e](/glossary/nishiki-e) bird-and-flower prints, the image is carried by black ink alone, with the form of the bloom or bough cut directly into the cedar surface. The natural grain of the boards — accentuated by Isomi's deliberately rough preparation — integrates with the depicted plant forms, so that a tree in the image and the wood from which it is printed become formally continuous. The visible seams between joined boards introduce a structural rhythm at right angles to the organic subject. Within Isomi's broader output, flower and tree subjects function less as still life than as meditations on the material identity of cedar itself, a concern shared with several of his postwar sōsaku-hanga contemporaries.
Sample work 02 — flower / tree (cedar woodblock series) was created by Teruo Isomi (磯見 輝夫).
Sample work 02 — flower / tree (cedar woodblock series) depicts birds & flowers and trees.
