Ox

A third treatment of the ushi character, completing a sequence in which Maki Haku tests the limits of how a single ideogram can be inflected through technical means. Variations among the three impressions involve color (a shift from [sumi](/glossary/sumi) black toward iron oxide red or earth ochre), the orientation and proportion of the block within the sheet, and the depth of carving—shallower relief produces a flatter, more graphic reading while deeper carving emphasizes the character's sculptural autonomy. The serial approach was central to Maki's working method from the late 1960s onward: rather than treating each print as a discrete image, he treated his blocks as ongoing investigations whose outputs accumulated into typologies. The ox, as zodiac sign and agrarian emblem, gave him a culturally legible kanji that he could push toward formal abstraction without surrendering recognition. Each impression renegotiates that balance between ideogram and constructed object.