Cherry Blossoms at Night in Maruyama Park (Maruyama no yozakura)

Published in 1925 and identified by its Japanese title Maruyama no yozakura (Night Cherry Blossoms at Maruyama), this [oban](/glossary/oban)-format color woodblock print represents one of Yoshikawa's most resolved treatments of Kyoto's preeminent cherry-viewing location. The oban format — roughly 38 by 25 centimeters — provides generous space for rendering the park's famous weeping cherry under evening lantern light, with the cascading blossom-laden branches arching across the composition. [Bokashi](/glossary/bokashi) gradation in the sky passages moves from deep indigo near the upper register to a warmer tone above the horizon, a technique that required precise [baren](/glossary/baren) pressure and dampened [washi](/glossary/washi) to achieve even tonal transitions across large areas. The 1925 date places the print in the mature phase of the [shin-hanga](/glossary/shin-hanga) movement, when Kyoto publishers were producing landscape prints of high technical refinement that rivaled Tokyo output in coloristic sophistication.