from the series One Hundred Pictures by Kyôsai (Kyôsai hyakuzu)

Landscape elements appear throughout the Kyōsai hyakuzu series, often as settings for figure compositions rather than as autonomous subjects. Kyosai was not primarily a [meisho-e](/glossary/meisho-e) landscape specialist in the manner of Hiroshige, but his Shijō training gave him a naturalistic approach to rocks, water, trees, and weather that he could mobilize in support of narrative or supernatural subjects. A print centered on landscape in this series might depict a mountain pass, a riverine scene, or a coastal setting rendered with the atmospheric gradations — [bokashi](/glossary/bokashi) applied in layered washes from light to dark — that were a hallmark of technically accomplished [nishiki-e](/glossary/nishiki-e). The [oban](/glossary/oban) format gave sufficient space for a composition that balanced a large natural feature in one register against smaller figures or details in another, creating the scalar contrast that Japanese printmakers used to suggest depth and spatial recession.