Eggplants

This still-life print of eggplants (nasubi, Solanum melongena) belongs to the category of botanical and produce subjects that appear alongside Kokei's kabuki work and demonstrate the range of his printmaking practice. Eggplants carry particular cultural resonance in Japan — they appear in the famous New Year's dream omen sequence (ichi Fuji, ni taka, san nasubi) — and their deep aubergine color has long been appreciated in decorative arts. Kokei would render the fruits' characteristic deep purple through dense pigment layering, using multiple overprinted color blocks to achieve the saturated, subtly varied skin tone — darker at the calyx end, brighter where light catches the surface. The elongated form of the Japanese eggplant presents a compositional challenge suited to multiblock printing: the smooth, reflective surface requires careful gradation between highlight and shadow, while the textured calyx and stem provide contrast in both color and line character.