Ohara (712)

Ohara is a small rural valley north of Kyoto, set among the foothills of Mount Hiei and long associated with the Buddhist temples Sanzen-in and Jakko-in, with terraced rice fields, thatched farmhouses, and a slow-moving stream running through the village. The print likely depicts one of these familiar Ohara views — a farmhouse beside a paddy, a temple precinct enclosed by walls, or the village seen across rice terraces — rendered with Tanaka's characteristic close attention to weathered surface and quiet light. Ohara was a recurrent subject for postwar Japanese printmakers seeking to record landscapes of preserved traditional life within reach of the modern city, and Tanaka returned to it repeatedly as part of his broader documentation of the Kyoto countryside. This middle-period catalogue number places the work within the most productive phase of his career, when his vocabulary of rural motifs was fully formed and his descriptive command at its most assured.