Lyrical seasons

Lyrical seasons suggests a sequence drawing on Japan's tradition of seasonal observation, here filtered through the sosaku-hanga commitment to the artist's personal hand. Where commercial Edo-era kacho-e codified seasonal flora and fauna into established pairings — plum with bush warbler, willow with swallow — Maekawa's seasonal work tends toward looser, more atmospheric framing, sometimes showing a single object or fragment of landscape rather than fully rendered nature studies. The mokuhanga medium suits this quieter approach, with washi receiving thin, transparent layers of color to suggest mist, dew, or the fading light at the edge of a season. The 'lyrical' framing aligns the print with the haiku sensibility — a brief, particular noticing rather than a comprehensive scene. Within Maekawa's body of work, prints under such titles complement his bath and figure subjects by extending the same attentive, unforced gaze to the natural world that he turned on the human one.