Untitled

This untitled print occupies an indeterminate position within Kiyochika's body of work, classified as abstract in the absence of identifiable subject matter. His printmaking career extended across the 1870s through the early twentieth century, and his style underwent considerable change during this period—from the innovative Western-influenced atmospheric views of his early career to the more conventionally commercial output of his later years. Abstract works from his later career may reflect either a continued formal experimentalism or the reduced investment in individual print quality that characterized his production under changing commercial conditions. The woodblock print medium itself imposes certain visual effects regardless of the artist's intention: the slight halation at color edges, the directionality of [bokashi](/glossary/bokashi) strokes, and the granular texture of pigment on [washi](/glossary/washi) are properties the artist works with rather than against.