Untitled

A woodblock print by Austrian artist Manfred Egger, exhibited in the international juried selection at the 2021 IMC in Nara. The conference theme—[sumi](/glossary/sumi)—drew attention to the role of black ink in mokuhanga, both as a historical reference to ink painting and calligraphy and as a contemporary material with its own physical character. Sumi is produced by binding lampblack or pine soot with hide glue and forming it into sticks that are ground against a stone with water; the resulting fluid, applied to a cherry or shina block and printed by hand with a [baren](/glossary/baren), behaves differently from synthetic pigments, producing variations in density and hue that reward close looking. Egger's untitled work, like much contemporary mokuhanga, can be expected to engage these material specifics rather than reproduce the genre conventions of Edo-period prints. His participation places him within the post-2011 IMC community, a triennial gathering that has become the principal forum for international practitioners of the technique.