Chrysanthemum No. 6

The chrysanthemum (kiku) has held a privileged position in Japanese visual culture since the Heian period, serving as both imperial emblem and emblem of late autumn. Sugiura's treatment isolates the bloom from naturalistic context, presenting the layered, near-spherical flower head as a study in radiating petal forms. This approach descends from the Edo kacho-e tradition exemplified by Ohara Koson and Watanabe Seitei but adopts a modernist sensibility — flat color fields, refined contour, and an emphasis on decorative pattern over pictorial space. As the sixth in his Chrysanthemum series, this print belongs to a sustained meditation on flower form that parallels his more extensive Iris and Peony series, all sharing his characteristic interest in surface texture, controlled palette, and the formal isolation of a single botanical subject. The print sits within the postwar sōsaku-hanga inheritance, where the artist designs and presents the work as a unified artistic statement rather than a collaborative atelier product.