AI

AI, the Japanese word for indigo, takes the dye-derived blue that has been central to Japanese woodblock printing since the introduction of bero-ai (Prussian blue) in the 1820s as its conceptual subject. In Kuroda's hands, this title likely signals a composition built around layered blue tonalities achieved through [bokashi](/glossary/bokashi) gradient printing — a technique in which pigment is brushed onto the woodblock unevenly to produce a smooth transition from saturation to pale wash. Kuroda's contemporary mokuhanga practice typically combines traditional [baren](/glossary/baren)-burnished impressions on [washi](/glossary/washi) with the compositional discipline he absorbed during his etching and aquatint studies in the United States after 1984. Where Edo-period printmakers used ai as one color among many, Kuroda's generation has often isolated single-color statements as a means of foregrounding the material qualities of pigment, paper, and registration. Within his broader catalogue of cyclist-and-umbrella imagery, monochromatic works function as quieter studies of mood and atmosphere.