Total Abandon (Mukotai no saku), from a series iIllustrating Tanizaki Junichiro's "The Key (Kagi)"

"Total Abandon (Mukotai no saku)" from a series illustrating Tanizaki Junichiro's novel "The Key" (Kagi) — carved in 1956, printed in 1958 — places Munakata in direct dialogue with one of Japan's most celebrated and controversial modern novelists. Tanizaki's "The Key" (1956) explored erotic desire and its complications within a marriage, and Munakata's illustration brings his characteristic directness to a subject that demanded exactly that quality. The title "Mukotai" (total abandon, or complete giving-over) names the state of erotic dissolution that Tanizaki's novel analyzed with such clinical precision, and Munakata renders it with the passionate energy that made his figure prints so compelling.