Shujitsu

Shujitsu, meaning a full day or an entire day — the character combining the concepts of week and sun — gives this abstract woodblock print its temporal subject: the passage of light across a single day. Rome's composition likely traces chromatic shifts from cool morning light through the warm saturation of midday to the deepening tones of late afternoon, achieved through multiple successive printings that layer and modulate pigment. The mokuhanga process, which requires drying time between each block printing, enacts a temporal dimension that corresponds to the subject. Graduated [bokashi](/glossary/bokashi) passages may suggest the directional, changing quality of daylight as it moves across a surface or landscape.