The Morning is Coming - October

This woodcut marks a significant tonal departure within Okada Ikumi's practice: where her nocturnes dwell in darkness, 'The Morning is Coming — October' occupies the transitional moment before dawn. The October specificity grounds the print in a particular quality of autumnal pre-dawn light — cooler, more diffuse, and shorter-lived than summer morning. The landscape subject likely features a horizon in which darkness still dominates but is fractured by the first pale gradations of approaching light. In mokuhanga, this tonal transition — the dark-to-light movement that characterizes dawn — can be achieved through layered [bokashi](/glossary/bokashi) passes, each printed block contributing to a cumulative atmosphere rather than discrete pictorial elements. The title's phrasing, 'is coming' rather than 'has come,' captures the anticipatory quality of threshold light.