Words of the Wind — 風ことば
- Medium:
- Woodblock print
- Source:
- Japanese Art Open Database
Key value factors: As self-carved and self-printed works, sosaku-hanga value is tied to the artist's reputation and edition size. Larger formats, earlier editions, and historically significant works command the highest prices.
"Wind Words" or "Words of the Wind" (風ことば) — a title that captures the essence of Nakajima Kiyoshi's artistic preoccupation with the invisible made visible, the atmospheric given form. In his printmaking practice, wind is not merely a physical phenomenon but a kind of language: it communicates the season, the time of day, the emotional register of a scene through its effects on the elements it touches — hair, garment, grass, branch, water. This print renders those wind-words in the visual vocabulary of woodblock printing, capturing the breath of a moving world in a moment of fixed pigment on paper.
Wakasa Kugushiko
1920
Color woodblock print; oban
Woodblock print
1934
Color woodblock print; oban
n.d.
Woodblock print; ishizuri-e, section of harimaze sheet
Curated cross-cuts that include this print.
Words of the Wind — 風ことば was created by Nakajima Kiyoshi (中島潔).
Words of the Wind — 風ことば depicts landscapes, figures, and bijin-ga.
