Flower Market

This colour woodblock print depicts a flower market (kusa-ichi, 草市) of the Akita summer — the seasonal market at which fresh-cut summer flowers, the o-bon offerings for the festival of the returning ancestors, and the small ritual decorations of the August summer are sold in the open air. The composition shows the busy market stalls with figures examining the displayed flowers under low canopies, recording one of the most characteristic urban summer customs of pre-modern Akita. Katsuhira Tokushi devoted a significant part of his work to the market scenes of his native city across different seasons — flower markets in summer, snow markets of the Yukiguni winter — and his series of market subjects forms an important sub-strand within his broader documentary project. Produced in the strict jiga-jikoku-jizuri procedure of the sōsaku-hanga movement, the print exemplifies the artist's interest in the open social spaces of Akita town life as carriers of seasonal meaning.