Maize

Maize takes as its subject a crop introduced to Japan from the Americas via Portuguese trade in the sixteenth century, and one that occupies an unusual position within Japanese pictorial tradition. Unlike rice, bamboo, or the classical grasses of waka poetry, maize lacks the dense literary and symbolic associations that ordinarily structure botanical subjects in the [kacho-e](/glossary/kacho-e) genre. Kamei's selection of this subject suggests an observational rather than emblematic approach, with the print likely focusing on the structural form of the cob, husk, and silk. Mokuhanga handles such subjects through carved registration of the parallel rows of kernels, a technical demand that requires precise alignment across multiple color blocks. [Bokashi](/glossary/bokashi) gradation may have been employed to suggest the cylindrical volume of the cob and the translucent character of the husk leaves. Within Kamei's body of work, the maize print represents the more idiosyncratic edge of his subject range, distinct from both his [shin-hanga](/glossary/shin-hanga) landscape commissions and the more conventional flower studies that publishers regularly issued. The choice of subject reflects the broadening of pictorial vocabulary that characterized mid-twentieth-century Japanese print production.