Untitled

Technical mastery of the woodblock printing process required close collaboration between the artist, the carver, and the printer, even when the composition abandons conventional subject matter. This untitled abstract print by Kiyochika would have passed through the same production stages as his representational work: the preparatory sketch transferred to the key block, the carved outlines handed to a printer for color block registration, the pigments mixed and tested for correct density. Abstract prints of this type test these collaborative relationships differently from representational work, since the compositional rightness of the finished impression cannot be evaluated against a legible referent. The quality of the final print depends entirely on the printer's sensitivity to tonal relationship and ink distribution.