Acrobats (Karuwaza)

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 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.