Untitled

An untitled woodblock print by Kiyochika whose abstract classification points to a composition organized around purely visual rather than narrative interests. Within the history of Meiji printmaking, Kiyochika occupies an unusual position as an artist conversant with both the [ukiyo-e](/glossary/ukiyo-e) tradition and Western pictorial conventions, and abstract works represent the space where those two frameworks most directly intersect. The graduated [bokashi](/glossary/bokashi) that defines his atmospheric effects—requiring the printer to apply progressively diluted pigment across a dampened block face—is technically demanding, and its results in abstract compositions appear as smooth tonal transitions devoid of the spatial referents such as sky, water, fog, or snow that typically anchor such gradations in his topographic work. The gradation becomes the subject rather than a background condition.