Hanga
Park in Vienna by Tadashige Ono — Japanese Mokuhanga (Japanese woodblock)

Park in Vienna

by Tadashige Ono

Medium:
Mokuhanga (Japanese woodblock)
Image courtesy of
Saru Gallery

Description

A view of one of Vienna's formal gardens or public parks — likely the Volksgarten, Stadtpark, or grounds of a former imperial residence. Ono approaches the subject with the carved line and reduced palette characteristic of sosaku-hanga, favoring flat planes of color over modeled realism. The print is pulled from a small set of blocks worked on washi, with bokashi gradation suggesting recession through the trees or atmospheric softening of the middle distance. The European park subject marks a shift from his prewar prints of Tokyo factories and laborers, reflecting the broader opening of sosaku-hanga to international travel in the 1950s and 1960s. Where his earlier work used stark black-and-white contrast for social commentary, these European travel prints introduce a broader chromatic range while retaining the directness of self-carved, self-printed mokuhanga. The composition organizes itself around the architecture of paths, hedges, and pavilion structures rather than naturalistic foliage, in keeping with Ono's habit of reducing a scene to its structural elements.

More Prints by Tadashige Ono

More Gardens Prints

Featured in Collections

Curated cross-cuts that include this print.

Frequently Asked Questions

Park in Vienna was created by Tadashige Ono (小野忠重).

Park in Vienna depicts gardens.