Onjiku Beach (Onjiku no hama)

Date:: Japanese, Taishô era
Medium:: Woodblock print
Source:: mfa

Typical Price

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.

Common examples: $100–$500
Good impressions: $500–$2,000
Premium/scarce: $2,000–$10,000

Description

Onjiku Beach (Onjiku no hama), a Taisho-era woodblock, depicts the coastline at Onjuku in Chiba Prefecture, a stretch of Pacific shore known for its surfing waves and broad sandy beach. Tobari renders the seascape with the directness of sosaku-hanga, his own carving translating wave, sand, and sky into the binary language of cut and uncut wood. The beach subject strips the composition to essentials: the horizontal division between land, sea, and sky, complicated only by the movement of water and the texture of sand. Onjiku's relatively undeveloped shoreline in the Taisho era would have presented a wild, natural scene far from urban Tokyo.