Lilies & Roses

Lilies & Roses is a Japanese woodblock print by Toru Mabuchi that brings two flower subjects together within a single still life composition. Mabuchi worked in the [sosaku-hanga](/glossary/sosaku-hanga) (creative print) tradition, designing, carving, and printing his own blocks, and that personal control over the entire process is evident in the way the lilies and roses are integrated rather than treated as two separate motifs grafted into one frame. The lilies' trumpet-shaped blossoms and long stems play against the rounder, more clustered forms of the roses, giving the composition an internal rhythm that the Japanese woodblock medium reinforces through clean carved edges and quiet color. Mabuchi's flower prints tend to avoid lush decorative effects in favor of structured arrangements where each bloom reads as a deliberate shape, and Lilies & Roses follows that pattern: the bouquet is something to look at carefully rather than something to admire in passing. As with much of his still life output, the subject is Western in origin (cut flowers in a vase) but the visual treatment is rooted in Japanese woodblock practice, with attention to negative space, surface inking, and the slight irregularities that signal hand printing. The print is documented through [ukiyo-e](/glossary/ukiyo-e).org via the Art Gallery of Greater Victoria (AGGV) image record, which preserves a museum-quality reference impression for the work. For collectors of Toru Mabuchi and of postwar sosaku-hanga still life, this print sits comfortably alongside his rose-only and other floral studies.