Wave

A second variation on the wave subject, this mokuhanga revisits the motif with a different compositional emphasis, demonstrating the sosaku-hanga practice of treating a single subject as a series of investigations rather than a fixed image. Where Edo-period seascape prints relied on outline blocks and pre-mixed pigments applied by professional printers, Ono carved and pulled his own impressions, so the surface carries the immediate trace of the baren and the texture of the washi. The image likely concentrates on the relation between dark trough and pale crest, with the carved positive and negative areas balanced as graphic shapes rather than naturalistic description. This kind of formal experimentation places the print within the legacy of Koshiro Onchi's abstract turn within the Ichimoku-kai circle, where Ono had been active since the early 1930s. The wave subject also connects Ono's interest in industrial waterfronts and rivers — a recurring motif across his work — to the more abstracted natural world he turned to alongside his prolific writing on the history of Japanese printmaking.