"Mother's Love, Shôwa period,"

This Shōwa-period print takes maternal affection as its subject, situating Kawano within a long tradition of depicting women and children in Japanese printmaking that extends from Utamaro's [bijin-ga](/glossary/bijin-ga) to Meiji-era genre scenes. Kawano likely renders a mother and infant in close physical proximity, using the bold hand-carved outlines and flat color fields characteristic of his [sosaku-hanga](/glossary/sosaku-hanga) style. The subject carries emotional directness unusual for the movement, which often favored formal or aesthetic concerns over sentiment. Kawano's carving technique, developed through self-directed sosaku-hanga practice rather than the collaborative atelier system of traditional Edo-period production, allows for expressive variation in line weight — thick, assertive outlines giving way to finer interior marks that describe fabric and gesture. The title's explicit naming of maternal love reflects the print's intended appeal to Western collectors in the postwar period, when Japanese artists increasingly produced works with legible emotional subjects for an export-oriented market.