Factory

This continuation of the factory series probably presents the industrial complex as landscape — a wide view across rooftops, water tanks, and the rectilinear geometry of warehouse blocks. Ono frequently composed such prints with a low horizon and a tall sky punctuated by smokestacks, treating the factory zone as the modern equivalent of meisho-e: a famous-place picture of the industrial periphery rather than of pastoral scenery. The print likely uses one or two carved blocks, exploiting the contrast between dense black masses and the unprinted white of the washi to suggest haze, smoke, or winter light. Within the Ichimoku-kai circle around Onchi, Ono represented the documentary, socially-engaged wing of sosaku-hanga, distinguished from Onchi's abstract lyricism by a sustained commitment to subject matter drawn from the lives of urban workers.