Sharkskin pattern

A second print exploring the samegawa motif, this work likely presents a variant treatment of the dotted, fan-arrayed pattern. Pattern prints lend themselves to series production, where the same underlying motif is reworked through changes of scale, color, density, or orientation. In Japanese print history, traditional pattern books (moyō-bon) circulated as design resources for kimono makers, sword fittings, and lacquer work, and twentieth-century printmakers periodically returned to such ornamental sources. Mokuhanga techniques relevant to a pattern composition include precise registration across multiple blocks, layered color printing, bokashi gradients carried across the dotted field, and karazuri or gauffrage to introduce a tactile dimension to what would otherwise be a flat repeating motif. The pairing of two sharkskin prints in Takasawa Keiichi's body of work suggests deliberate exploration of the motif rather than incidental treatment. Together with the figurative prints, these works place the artist within the figurative-ornamental spectrum that characterized much of late twentieth-century Japanese printmaking.