Kitayama cedars

This etching portrays the cultivated cedars of the Kitayama mountains north of Kyoto, the slender, branchless trunks of Kitayama-sugi grown for centuries for use as decorative posts in tea-ceremony architecture and traditional sukiya-style construction. Tanaka exploits the etched line's precision to articulate the regimented vertical rhythm of the trunks, building forest depth through fine parallel hatching and varied bite depth that lets foreground trees press forward while distant trunks dissolve into atmospheric grey. The subject sits at the intersection of landscape and craft — these are not wild forests but a centuries-old silvicultural tradition tied to Kyoto's architectural heritage, which made it natural territory for an artist whose career centered on the intersection of rural labor and built form. The vertical composition and reduced palette of intaglio black on cream paper recall the restraint of sumi-e, though the technique is wholly Western. It belongs to the same investigation of the Kyoto countryside that produced his thatched-roof and shrine-gate prints.