Riverbank

The latest-numbered of Ono's riverbank prints in this group, suggesting a sustained serial engagement with the subject across years rather than a single campaign. The image likely presents another configuration of embankment, water, and built structure, treated with the simplified shapes and limited palette characteristic of Ono's mature mokuhanga. Where Edo-period nishiki-e maximized the number of color blocks in pursuit of decorative richness, Ono — like other sosaku-hanga artists — typically reduced the block count and let the natural materials assert themselves: the texture of washi accepting the pigment, the directional grain of the cherry or katsura block visible through flat areas, the slight variations of impression that mark each sheet as individually printed. The riverbank series taken as a whole constitutes one of the most extended motif-studies in Ono's catalogue and shows how a single subject could sustain decades of formal investigation within his practice.