Belief of the Universe (Uchū no shinkyō), variant II

The second variant of Uchū no shinkyō (Belief of the Universe) in the Library of Congress (LC 2008660538) reworks the same compositional problem on a different chromatic register. Where the first variant deploys a deep ultramarine sky around a milky white spiral, this impression uses a black sky with a smaller, more concentrated luminous form at center, and the lower landscape band is broadened to occupy nearly half the sheet. The treatment of the landscape is more developed than in the companion variant, with a low mountain silhouette in the middle distance and a small body of reflective water at the lower edge picking up a thin highlight from the cosmic form above. Konen evidently understood the two variants as a study pair, in the same way that he had treated the Hatō zu wave compositions as a series of related studies in a single subject. The drawing of the landscape silhouette is carried by precise Maruyama-Shijō shorthand inherited from his teacher Suzuki Kason, while the printing of the cosmic form involves at least two overlaid colour blocks to achieve its delicate luminous quality. The print preserves Konen's most ambitious attempt to bring the new astronomical sensibility of the Meiji period into the formal vocabulary of Japanese landscape printmaking.