Untitled

This untitled woodblock print reflects Kiyochika's working method during the height of his kosen-ga output in the early Meiji era. His printer Matsui Heikichi was essential to realizing Kiyochika's tonal ambitions: complex [bokashi](/glossary/bokashi) effects required multiple passes over partially inked blocks, with each impression slightly variable, lending individual prints a quality of handcraft not present in more mechanically produced [ukiyo-e](/glossary/ukiyo-e). In works classified as abstract, Kiyochika may have stripped away the urban subject matter that characterized his celebrated series, leaving the structural logic of light and darkness visible as form. Such prints function as demonstrations of the woodblock process's capacity for tonal range.