Key value factors: As self-carved and self-printed works, sosaku-hanga value is tied to the artist's reputation and edition size. Larger formats, earlier editions, and historically significant works command the highest prices.
Acrobats (Karuwaza), also from 1916, expands from the solo performer to a group of acrobats, the Japanese title karuwaza meaning light tricks or feats of agility. Multiple figures in motion multiply the compositional challenges, each body occupying a different phase of action while the whole group maintains a collective rhythm. Tobari's woodblock captures this organized chaos through the [sosaku-hanga](/glossary/sosaku-hanga) principle of direct carving, where the artist's knife responds immediately to the subject's energy without the mediating step of a professional carver's interpretation. The print freezes a moment of coordinated acrobatic flight, bodies suspended in the air between launch and landing.
Curated cross-cuts that include this print.
Acrobats (Karuwaza) was created by Kogan Tobari (戸張孤雁) in 1916.
Acrobats (Karuwaza) depicts figures and daily life.
