Round trip II

The second plate in the Round trip sequence, this intaglio print sits between the series' opening statement and its concluding image. Although the Hanga catalogue records the medium as etching, the work follows Hamanishi's characteristic mezzotint practice, in which a copper plate is mechanically rocked to a uniform burr before tonal areas are burnished back toward light. The Round trip title implies a paired or mirrored composition — outward and return, departure and arrival — and the second state in the series typically functions as the pivot in such a sequence. Hamanishi's surfaces in works of this period exhibit the deep, saturated blacks for which his prints are recognised, set against passages of close-valued grey that register only on extended viewing. The series situates Hamanishi within the contemporary inheritors of the mezzotint revival, working a technique that demands hours of preparation per square centimetre of plate.