Leaving the Dock
- Medium:
- Woodblock print
- Source:
- Japanese Art Open Database
Key value factors: As self-carved and self-printed works, sosaku-hanga value is tied to the artist's reputation and edition size. Larger formats, earlier editions, and historically significant works command the highest prices.
This woodblock print captures the moment of a vessel departing from its dock, a subject that combines the stillness of harbor architecture with the implied movement of a boat heading toward open water. Miyamoto Shufu renders the dock as a stable foreground element, its pilings and planking providing geometric structure against which the departing boat reads as a form in transition. The water between dock and vessel may already show the widening gap that marks the point of no return in any departure. Shufu's handling of the scene favors the contemplative over the dramatic, treating the leave-taking as a quiet event rather than a momentous one. The print belongs to a tradition of harbor and port scenes in Japanese printmaking, where the threshold between land and sea serves as a natural metaphor for transition.
Wakasa Kugushiko
1920
Color woodblock print; oban
Woodblock print
1934
Color woodblock print; oban
n.d.
Woodblock print; ishizuri-e, section of harimaze sheet
Curated cross-cuts that include this print.
Leaving the Dock was created by Miyamoto Shufu (宮本秋風).
Leaving the Dock depicts landscapes, boats & ships, and seascapes.
