Factory

By this point in the factory series, Ono is varying compositional viewpoint and atmospheric effect across closely related subjects — the equivalent, in his graphic vocabulary, of Hokusai's serial treatment of a single mountain. This sixth iteration probably introduces a temporal or weather variant: a factory at dusk, in rain, or under the smoke that hung over Tokyo's eastern industrial wards. Such atmospheric work in mokuhanga is achieved through [bokashi](/glossary/bokashi), the gradient inking of the block before pulling, allowing a single carved surface to register light-to-dark transitions across smoke, sky, or pavement. Ono's restrained palette — typically black with at most one supporting tone — keeps the focus on graphic structure rather than chromatic incident. The print belongs to the body of work that established him as a serious artist within the [sosaku-hanga](/glossary/sosaku-hanga) movement before his postwar career as the principal historian of Japanese creative printmaking.