Poéme No. 11: Spring

"Poème No. 11: Spring" of 1950, executed in Onchi's woodblock-and-object technique, renders spring not as landscape or seasonal notation but as an experience of quality — the specific sensory and emotional character of the season translated into abstract compositional terms. The object-print technique, incorporating found materials that retain their own organic character in the impression, was particularly suited to a spring subject: the prints themselves have something of the spontaneous, generative quality of spring growth. This is one of Onchi's most successful seasonal abstractions.