Mountain Village
- Medium:
- Woodblock print
- Source:
- wbp
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 depicts a mountain village, a subject that allows Miyamoto Shufu to combine his facility with atmospheric landscape and his interest in the human presence within nature. The village's buildings cluster on or near a mountainside, their rooflines and walls providing geometric contrast to the organic forms of the surrounding terrain. Mountain villages in Japan occupy a particular place in the cultural imagination, representing both rural isolation and a closeness to nature that urban life forfeits. Shufu renders the settlement with enough detail to suggest habitation without documenting individual structures, keeping the focus on the relationship between built environment and natural setting. The mountains beyond the village recede through graduated tones that convey both distance and the thinning atmosphere of higher elevations.
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.
Mountain Village was created by Miyamoto Shufu (宮本秋風).
Mountain Village depicts landscapes, mountains, and village scenes.
