Untitled

Attributed to Kiyochika, this untitled woodblock print is classified as abstract, suggesting that its compositional elements do not correspond to an identifiable landscape, figure, or narrative subject. His most formally innovative prints from the late 1870s pushed the woodblock medium toward a kind of tonal impressionism, in which the precise rendering of architectural detail was subordinated to the overall atmospheric effect—a direction that, taken further, could yield compositions where subject matter became difficult to read. The [bokashi](/glossary/bokashi) technique, applied with particular density across sky and water passages, produced gradations subtle enough that the transition from dark to light occurred across many centimeters of the [washi](/glossary/washi) surface, requiring the printer to maintain consistent tool pressure and paper moisture through repeated passes.