Untitled

This untitled sheet continues Kitamura's sustained engagement with the Japanese rural landscape. His undated and untitled prints typically present specifically observed views — a hillside terrace, a stand of bamboo above a river bank, the corner of a thatched-roof farmhouse — favoring the quiet over the dramatic. The mokuhanga technique he uses supports soft transitions of color ([bokashi](/glossary/bokashi)) that landscape printmakers have employed for atmospheric effect since at least the early nineteenth century. Working in modest editions and printing the blocks himself, Kitamura belongs to the line of post-war Japanese landscape printmakers who continue the [meisho-e](/glossary/meisho-e) tradition of place-based imagery while operating independently of commercial publishing houses. The print is impressed on [washi](/glossary/washi) paper, with color registered through hand-cut [kento](/glossary/kento) marks; the visible texture of the paper fiber and the slight unevenness of hand-burnished impression are part of the sheet's visual character.