Kumu (pile)

*Kumu (Pile)*, a woodblock print by Masato Sudo, shows five bare human backs and shoulders crouched tightly together in a huddled cluster against a solid black ground. Every visible expanse of skin is covered in polychrome irezumi tattooing — dragons, a koi, warrior figures, and floral scrollwork rendered in red, indigo, black, and grey-green — with overhead lighting picking out pale highlights along the curved shoulders and spines. The print carries a pencil signature and a red seal in the lower right corner, and its close, overlapping framing of the bent bodies gives the image a dense, compressed feel.