Poem No.8: Season of Butterflies

Poem No. 8: Season of Butterflies belongs to Onchi's Poem series, abstract mokuhanga in which compositions of color, shape, and texture stand in for poetic subject matter rather than describe it. The series, developed from the late 1930s onward, treats the print as a visual analogue to lyric poetry — each work given a literary title that orients the viewer's reading of the abstract image without depicting it. "Season of Butterflies" likely organizes drifting forms and overlapping translucent color fields into a composition evocative of flight and seasonal change, with [bokashi](/glossary/bokashi) gradations applied directly to the block before printing and the woodgrain often surfacing as part of the image. As with all [sosaku-hanga](/glossary/sosaku-hanga) work, Onchi designed, carved, and printed the blocks himself, frequently incorporating found materials — leaves, string, paper — pressed into the impression. The Poem series, alongside the Lyrique prints, established Onchi as the central figure of twentieth-century Japanese abstract printmaking and a lasting influence on postwar artists including Hagiwara Hideo and Saito Kiyoshi.