Late summer

This second impression of Late Summer shares its title with a related print in Sato's output and likely represents either a variant state, an alternate color trial, or a separately editioned composition addressing the same seasonal subject. Variant impressions are common in Sato's practice, where shifts in pigment density, leaf application, or background tone produce meaningfully different works from related blocks. The composition again centers on tree forms in the transitional period before autumn, with the metallic leaf technique providing localized highlights that change in appearance under different lighting conditions in the printed image. Working within an established format allowed Sato to refine specific technical concerns — the granularity of leaf transfer, the registration of overprinted color blocks, the calibration of bokashi at the horizon — without altering the underlying subject. The print contributes to a body of work that treats trees as a sustained inquiry rather than a series of discrete portraits, paralleling the focused thematic commitment seen in the work of his teacher Joichi Hoshi and other postwar sosaku-hanga artists who built careers around a single recurring motif.