Tokyo station

A second composition or alternate state on the Tokyo Station subject. The red-brick Marunouchi terminus, completed in 1914 to designs by Tatsuno Kingo, was a recurring motif for Taisho-period artists drawn to its emphatic Westernization. Variant impressions in [sosaku-hanga](/glossary/sosaku-hanga) practice frequently reflect the artist re-printing the same blocks in different color schemes or registrations - the hand-[baren](/glossary/baren) method makes each impression slightly distinct, and Onchi often experimented across pulls of a single image. The composition would likely emphasize the building's repetitive arched bays and central dome reduced to flat printed shapes, with small figures or vehicles establishing scale. Such urban subjects set Onchi's mokuhanga against the explicitly traditionalizing program of the [shin-hanga](/glossary/shin-hanga) publishers and asserted the woodblock as a contemporary artist's medium adequate to depicting modern Japan rather than only its Edo-period past.