Market Day

Market Day departs from the seasonal and meteorological subjects common elsewhere in Rome's work to engage the social and commercial activity of a public market. In abstract mokuhanga terms, this likely translates into a composition of fragmented, overlapping forms suggesting the visual density and movement of a crowded marketplace — figures or goods implied through gestural carving rather than delineated. The multiple-block printing process of mokuhanga, with its successive layers and registration requirements, formally parallels the organized multiplicity of a market: discrete units assembled into a coherent whole. Warm, saturated pigments drawn from the traditional Japanese palette convey the energy and color of goods displayed in natural light.