River

A fourth river composition that extends Ono's substantial group of works on this single recurring subject. The image likely revisits the urban waterway one more time, perhaps under different light or weather, perhaps with a different set of buildings, boats, or human activity at the bank. The persistence of the title across multiple prints reflects the sosaku-hanga conviction that the artist should work directly and personally from observation rather than reproducing canonical views — each River is a separate look at the same kind of place rather than a reissue of a famous image. Ono carved and printed his own blocks, and the visible marks of the gouges across the surface register the physical labor of cutting wood, a labor analogous to that of the workers, fishermen, and bargemen who populate his other prints. Together with the other river images, this print extends a sustained observation that ran across his career: the modern Japanese city seen through its working water.