A wooden printing block with a geometric design is laid on a table alongside various paint containers, brushes, and a printing tool.
- Image courtesy of
- Artist website (Shoichi Kitamura)
The composition depicts the materials of the mokuhanga workshop: a carved wooden block bearing a geometric design, arranged on a table among small dishes of pigment, brushes, and a [baren](/glossary/baren) — the disk-shaped tool used to burnish paper against an inked block. The geometric subject is uncommon within Kitamura's predominantly landscape output and suggests either a formal study or a print reflecting on the printmaking process itself. The arrangement of tools — pigment cups, hake brushes, the baren — names the components a printmaker working in the [sosaku-hanga](/glossary/sosaku-hanga) tradition handles personally, since the artist cuts, inks, and prints each block himself rather than dividing the work among a publisher's specialists, as in the older [ukiyo-e](/glossary/ukiyo-e) workshop system. Geometric block carving allows for clean color registration and demonstrates the precision the medium demands, in contrast to the [bokashi](/glossary/bokashi) gradations that recur in Kitamura's landscape sheets.
A wooden printing block with a geometric design is laid on a table alongside various paint containers, brushes, and a printing tool. was created by Shoichi Kitamura (北村昭一).
A wooden printing block with a geometric design is laid on a table alongside various paint containers, brushes, and a printing tool. depicts geometric.
