Landscape of Mt.Unzen, Nagasaki

Mt. Unzen is the volcanic massif rising above the Shimabara Peninsula in Nagasaki Prefecture; its peaks (Fugen-dake among them) and the spa town of Unzen on its slopes were familiar Taisho-Showa travel subjects. Onchi's landscape would typically reduce the mountain to a few flat color planes with [bokashi](/glossary/bokashi) gradients establishing atmosphere, more concerned with structural composition than topographical record. Where the [meisho-e](/glossary/meisho-e) tradition handed down a vocabulary for famous mountain views (Hokusai's Fuji, Hiroshige's stations), [sosaku-hanga](/glossary/sosaku-hanga) artists treated such scenes as occasions for personal pictorial invention rather than for completing a recognizable set. Self-carved key and color blocks give the printed surface a directness absent from the polished collaborative [ukiyo-e](/glossary/ukiyo-e) of the previous century. The print belongs to Onchi's representational landscape work, running parallel to his lyrical portraits and his abstract "Work" compositions across the same productive decades.