Fish

A print taking fish as its principal subject extends the [kacho-e](/glossary/kacho-e) tradition (literally flower-and-bird picture), which broadened in practice to include other natural subjects — insects, fish, and aquatic life. Hokusai and Hiroshige both produced fish prints in the nineteenth century, and the genre carried forward into twentieth-century mokuhanga. A treatment of this subject typically isolates one or several specimens against a minimal ground, perhaps with stylized water indicated by a few curved lines or a wash of pale blue. Technical interest centers on the rendering of scales and fins, which can be carved as fine textural lines or built up through overlapping color impressions, and on the use of [bokashi](/glossary/bokashi) gradation to model the body's curvature and suggest the play of light through water. Such prints extended the seasonal sensibility of Japanese natural-subject art into a quieter mode than the more frequently depicted birds and flowers, treating their subjects with observational care rather than symbolic weight.