Untitled

This untitled print likely belongs to Kiyochika's period of intensive formal experimentation in the 1870s and 1880s, when he was developing the visual language that would come to define his kosen-ga style. During this period, he produced a number of prints that resist easy categorization — neither conventional [meisho-e](/glossary/meisho-e) nor portraiture nor [kacho-e](/glossary/kacho-e), but compositions organized primarily around the problem of luminosity. The [washi](/glossary/washi) surface functions in these works as both ground and participant: the natural white of the paper is used to represent the brightest light sources, with all surrounding tones printed as gradations moving away from that central luminous point. The formal logic is essentially radiative.