Hankei 板勁 (Strength of the Board)

"Hankei" — meaning "strength of the board" or the print's inherent power — is a word Munakata coined to describe the quality he sought in his woodblock work: the energy that resided in the wood itself, which the carver's knife could release rather than impose. That this concept receives its own print — executed in lithograph in 1944 — suggests Munakata was reflecting during the wartime years on the essential nature of his printmaking practice. The title is both a technical term and a spiritual aspiration, the woodblock's grain-force made manifest as both method and meaning.