Untitled

Among Kiyochika's untitled abstract prints, this work likely engages with his recurring interest in silhouette as a formal device. Many of his [meisho-e](/glossary/meisho-e) depict recognizable Tokyo landmarks — the Asakusa Honganji, the Ryogoku Bridge, the piers of the Sumida — in conditions of backlight or strong sidelight that reduce them to dark shapes against a luminous ground. This silhouette technique, while present in earlier [ukiyo-e](/glossary/ukiyo-e), acquires a different character in Kiyochika's work because the luminous ground is not simply the white of the paper but a printed field of complex graduated tone. The dark forms are thus not absences of ink but shapes pressed against a field of active color and gradation.