Mt. Myogi-san

A second Maeda treatment of Mt. Myōgi, indicating that the artist returned to this craggy Gunma peak more than once — a working method common among self-printing [sosaku-hanga](/glossary/sosaku-hanga) artists, who often re-cut a subject to refine composition, color separation, or block registration. Variant designs of the same motif allowed Maeda to experiment with simplified massing or shifted viewpoints without committing to a publisher's edition size. The mountain's bare rock faces and sharp ridges suit mokuhanga's appetite for hard-edged shapes, and the design likely uses [bokashi](/glossary/bokashi) gradation along the sky or distant slopes to soften the otherwise architectural geometry of the rock. Against the broader Maeda catalogue, the Myōgi prints sit alongside his Hokkaido subjects as studies in northern, structural terrain rather than the cherry-blossom or seaside scenery typical of mid-century landscape series. The print exemplifies the sosaku-hanga principle of jiga, jikoku, jizuri — self-drawn, self-carved, self-printed — in which authorial control extends through every stage of production rather than being divided among publisher, carver, and printer.