The Lights Go On in the Town with the Rustling of Rice Seedling

The 2024 woodcut takes its title from the contrast between two simultaneous cues at twilight: the auditory presence of young rice plants moving in the wind and the visual moment when streetlights and house windows begin to switch on in a nearby town. The small format (30 × 24 cm) supports a tightly framed composition in which the rice paddies likely occupy the foreground and middle ground, while the town reads as a horizontal band of low buildings and scattered points of illumination. The subject sits within an extended [meisho-e](/glossary/meisho-e) lineage, though Miura's contemporary approach diverges from Edo-period [nishiki-e](/glossary/nishiki-e): rather than a densely keyed palette, contemporary Japanese woodcut of this register tends toward layered impressions on [washi](/glossary/washi), with [bokashi](/glossary/bokashi) gradations available for the transition between sky, paddy water, and distant land. Exhibited at the 68th CWAJ Print Show 2025 and sold during the run, the print is consistent with Miura's wider observational landscape practice developed through her training at Tokyo Zokei University and her study under Ueno Shuko, oriented toward rural Japanese settings rather than urban or figurative subjects.