Snapper

This woodblock print from Ohno Bakufu's monumental series 'Dai Nihon Gyorui Gashu' (A Collection of Fish of Great Japan) depicts the red sea bream, known in Japanese as madai (Pagrus major). Among the most culturally significant fish in Japan, the madai occupies a ceremonial role in celebrations and Shinto ritual, lending this subject particular resonance. Ohno renders the fish with characteristic scientific precision: the deep rose-red scales, the blue-spotted flanks in younger specimens, and the pronounced forehead profile that develops with age. His carvers translated these details into finely keyed blocks, while the printers applied graduated bokashi across the body to suggest the fish's natural iridescence. The composition isolates the specimen against a neutral or lightly tinted ground, emphasizing morphological accuracy in the tradition of natural history illustration while remaining firmly within the aesthetic conventions of Japanese woodblock printing.