Fakutory Street of Fukagawa

Fukagawa, on the east bank of the Sumida in Tokyo, was by Maekawa Senpan's lifetime a heavily industrial district of canals, lumberyards, and small factories, and the print turns to a subject rarely treated in traditional ukiyo-e: the working modern city. Smokestacks, tiled factory roofs, telegraph poles, and figures moving along a narrow street are the kind of motifs sosaku-hanga artists embraced as part of their commitment to contemporary life, distinguishing their work from the nostalgic Edo imagery favored by shin-hanga publishers. Senpan would have organized the composition around strong horizontal and vertical accents — chimneys, eaves, wires — printed from cherry blocks on washi with a hand-baren. A muted palette of grays, browns, and dulled blues, varied through bokashi, would carry the mood of a working district rather than a sightseeing destination. The print sits alongside his rural and festival subjects as evidence of the breadth of his observation across early-twentieth-century Japan.