Butterfly Poem No.8
- Medium:
- Mokuhanga (Japanese woodblock)
- Image courtesy of
- Saru Gallery
Part of Onchi's lyrical Butterfly Poem (Cho no shi) sequence, this print pairs the motif of a butterfly with the abstract visual vocabulary he developed in the 1930s and 1940s. Rather than depicting an insect naturalistically, Onchi treats the butterfly as a poetic emblem — a fragment of color, a curve of wing, a scatter of marks across the [washi](/glossary/washi) — closer to a printed haiku than to a [kacho-e](/glossary/kacho-e) flower-and-bird study. The series reflects his lifelong dialogue with literature, particularly his close ties to the poet Hagiwara Sakutaro, whose verse Onchi illustrated and whose lyric sensibility shaped his approach to the printed image. Self-designed, self-carved, and self-printed in the [sosaku-hanga](/glossary/sosaku-hanga) tradition, Butterfly Poem No. 8 exemplifies Onchi's conviction that the woodblock could carry purely emotional or musical content rather than narrative description.
Curated cross-cuts that include this print.
Butterfly Poem No.8 was created by Onchi Koshiro (恩地孝四郎).
Butterfly Poem No.8 depicts insects and literary.
