Chrysanthemums

A chrysanthemum print in mokuhanga that engages the long-standing kacho-e tradition of bird-and-flower imagery while translating it into the reductive vocabulary of sosaku-hanga. Where Edo-period chrysanthemum prints typically built each blossom from many fine carved lines and graded color, Inagaki's approach would flatten the flower into a few broad planes — petal masses against a stem, leaf shapes as cut silhouettes — relying on the contrast between figure and ground rather than internal modeling. Wood grain is often allowed to print through the background, a sosaku-hanga marker that announces the matrix as part of the image. The chrysanthemum carries deep cultural weight in Japan as the imperial emblem and an autumn flower of long literary association, but Inagaki treats it as a problem of graphic design rather than symbolic homage. The print sits alongside his other floral studies as evidence that the same instincts that produced his cat silhouettes could be applied to botanical subjects with comparable economy.