Cirrocumulus Clouds (Uroko-gumo)

Cirrocumulus Clouds (Uroko-gumo), dated 1919, is among Shiro Kasamatsu's earliest published designs and a window into his beginnings within the [shin-hanga](/glossary/shin-hanga) circle around the publisher Watanabe Shozaburo. The Japanese term uroko-gumo, literally fish-scale clouds, describes the rippled, mottled pattern that cirrocumulus formations make across an autumn sky; Japanese painters and poets had long treated this cloud type as a seasonal marker associated with clarity, melancholy, and the harvest months. Kasamatsu builds the image around that sky rather than around a more conventional architectural or figural focus, devoting the upper register to the patterned clouds and reserving a quieter band of landscape below. The print demonstrates how the shin-hanga workshop translated subtle atmospheric effects into woodblock technique: the cloud field is achieved through precisely registered impressions and graded [bokashi](/glossary/bokashi) printing, with the negative space of the paper carrying as much of the design as the printed pigment. Watanabe Shozaburo's role in shaping this kind of refined output is central; as publisher he selected artists, supervised the carving and printing teams, and pushed for editions that could compete in quality with both contemporary Western prints and earlier [ukiyo-e](/glossary/ukiyo-e) masterworks. For Kasamatsu, who was still in his twenties in 1919, the design helped establish the contemplative, atmosphere-driven sensibility that would mark his later landscapes. The print is held in the Art Institute of Chicago.