Koshi (741)

Koshi refers to the wooden lattice screens — vertical or grid-patterned slats of milled timber — set into the front facades of traditional Kyoto townhouses and farmhouses. The print likely presents a tightly framed study of one such lattice, perhaps with glimpses of a dim interior beyond, or the lattice set within its surrounding mud wall and tiled lower section. Tanaka frequently isolated architectural details in this way, treating elements of vernacular building — eaves, doorways, latticework, plaster walls — as worthy of the same close regard he gave to whole structures. The repeating verticals of a koshi screen offered a strict formal motif: parallel lines varying only in the subtle differences of weathering, dust, and shadow between bays. This kind of austere subject places the work close in spirit to the still-life tradition within sosaku-hanga, where ordinary objects of Japanese daily life were elevated through patient observation.