Waterfall, Shôwa period, dated 1966

Dated 1966 in the Showa period, this woodblock print depicts a waterfall, one of the most dramatic natural subjects available to the printmaker. Waterfalls have been a staple of Japanese art from Hokusai's celebrated series to Hiroshige's landscape prints, and Matsubara enters this tradition with her own visual vocabulary. The vertical plunge of water offered a natural compositional structure for a print, with the falling stream dominating the frame and the surrounding rock and vegetation serving as a frame within the frame. Matsubara's carved lines must negotiate the contradiction of depicting constant motion in a fixed medium, using the direction and energy of her gouge strokes to suggest the downward rush of water. The mokuhanga technique's water-based pigments create a material resonance between the medium and its subject.