Rabbit and Fish

"Rabbit and Fish" bears the extraordinary date of "spring 1855" — clearly a cataloguing error or transcription mistake for a Munakata work (he was born in 1903). Setting the date aside, the print itself captures two creatures with the primitive vitality that characterized Munakata's animal subjects: the rabbit and the fish each rendered with the direct, energetic line of a carver who trusted instinct over anatomical precision. Animals in Munakata's work often appear in the same compositional space as humans, sacred figures, and abstract patterns, as if all living things shared a common field of energy.