Factory

A further iteration in Ono's factory series, this print likely treats the same industrial subject through a different compositional structure — perhaps a closer view of machinery, a worker at a lathe, or the sectional interior of a workshop. Ono's mokuhanga from this period dispense with the elaborate color registration of commercial [ukiyo-e](/glossary/ukiyo-e) in favor of one or two blocks worked in stark [sumi](/glossary/sumi) black with restrained accents. The carved line, chiseled directly by the artist rather than delegated to a [horishi](/glossary/horishi), retains the visible facet marks of the chisel, giving the print a deliberately unrefined surface texture that suited the working-class subject. As both artist and historian, Ono later wrote extensively about the social print tradition in his books on the [sosaku-hanga](/glossary/sosaku-hanga) movement, situating his own factory works within an international lineage of industrial graphic art that included Frans Masereel and the German expressionists.