Zao Kako lake

Okama, literally the cooking pot, is the crater lake nestled in Zao's summit caldera, its waters held at an emerald-green by sulphur and iron compounds dissolved in the volcanic spring inflow. The Japanese title's kako specifies this crater origin. Maeda would have faced a compositional problem any printmaker tackling Okama confronts: a circular bowl viewed from a steep ridge, with the green water set against russet pumice slopes that bleed into one another without firm contour. The mokuhanga medium suits the subject, since flat color planes can isolate the water's saturation against the mineral browns and greys of the crater walls. As with Maeda's other Zao designs, this print sits in his sosaku-hanga register: a single artistic intelligence behind drawing, carving, and printing rather than the publisher-coordinated workshop chain typical of shin-hanga views of the same locations.