Sentimental notes on water

Sentimental Notes on Water belongs to Henmi's late album Sui In Fu (Rhymes and Musical Notes of Water), produced in 1942 and combining woodblock prints with his own poetry. The album draws together lyrical, often abstracted observations of water in its various states: rain, river, pond, snow, and fog. Individual sheets in such an album typically reduce the motif to a few elements organized as much for tonal balance as for description, relying on flat color planes, restrained bokashi gradations, and the texture of the woodblock itself to carry mood. As jihanga, each print is the work of the artist's own knife and baren rather than a divided workshop, in line with sosaku-hanga principles. Sui In Fu is the culmination of a quieter strain in Henmi's output, distinct from the documentary topography of the One Hundred New Views of Tokyo, and represents the integration of his work as a poet with his practice as a printmaker in the final years before his death in 1944.