Stone Buddha's at Usuki, Kyûshû

The Usuki Sekibutsu, a group of more than sixty Buddhist images carved directly into the volcanic tuff cliffs of Usuki in Oita Prefecture, date from the late Heian to early Kamakura periods and were designated National Treasures in 1995. The weathered stone heads of Dainichi Nyorai and the surrounding figures are notable examples of Japanese stone Buddhist sculpture. Hiratsuka, who devoted a substantial portion of his oeuvre to Buddhist temples, sculptures, and religious sites across Japan, would have rendered the carved figures in his signature high-contrast black-and-white mokuhanga. His approach typically translates volumetric sculpture into a flattened, graphic register, where the carving knife on the cherry block echoes the chisel work of the original stone carvers. The subject also reflects the wider sosaku-hanga interest in Japan's pre-modern artisanal heritage as a vehicle through which to assert a distinctly Japanese modernist printmaking.