Tropical Fish

A second composition on the same theme, this print again takes tropical reef fish as its motif but presumably arranges them differently from its companion — perhaps a different species, a different number of fish, or an alternative grouping against coral, rock, or open water. Pairs and series are a long-standing feature of Japanese woodblock practice, from Hokusai's Thirty-six Views of Mount Fuji onward, and treating the same subject in variant compositions allows the printmaker to explore how scale, negative space, and colour balance reshape an apparently identical motif. Technically, this image would draw on the same vocabulary as its pair: separate blocks for the boldly demarcated colour fields of the fish, [bokashi](/glossary/bokashi) gradations to evoke filtered underwater light, and possibly dotted or wood-grain printing to suggest scales and currents. Within Nakagawa Isaku's wider output, the existence of two tropical-fish prints reinforces the impression of an artist working serially with Ryūkyūan and southern Japanese marine subjects rather than treating them as one-off compositions.