Yozakura (Cherry Blossoms at Night)

Issued ten years after the artist's first yozakura mezzotint, this 2020 print revisits the subject — cherry blossoms seen against the night — with the same fundamental pairing of bright, scraped highlights against a dark mezzotint ground. The interval between the two editions is consistent with Hiroshima's habit of returning to favored motifs across time rather than producing a single image of a subject and moving on; insects, small animals, and seasonal phenomena each recur at intervals across his catalogue. The English subtitle here makes the imagery explicit for non-Japanese collectors, a practice common to his later editions as his work circulated more widely abroad. Within the night-scene category, the print extends a strain of his work in which atmospheric darkness rather than identifiable place becomes the primary carrier of mood, with the blossoms themselves the only fully resolved form on the sheet.