Hill of Nagasaki

Nagasaki's topography of steep hillsides descending to a deep harbor has been a subject for Japanese printmakers since the Nagasaki-e of the late Edo period, when the city's foreign quarter made it a focus of curiosity. Ono's mokuhanga of a Nagasaki hill belongs to a different tradition — the sosaku-hanga artist as travelling observer, recording specific Japanese places with the directness of a sketch translated into woodblock. The image likely shows clustered houses stepping up a slope, perhaps with glimpses of the harbor or the mixed Japanese and Western architecture that distinguishes the city. Compositionally, hill subjects suit the medium: flat planes of roofs and walls can be carved as overlapping tonal shapes, with the slope organizing the picture diagonally. Ono's treatment would have used a limited palette, with bokashi gradations for sky or water and crisp keyblock cuts for architectural edges. The print sits alongside his other regional Japanese subjects and reflects the postwar broadening of his work beyond the Tokyo industrial scenes that dominated his prewar output.