Zinnia's

A still-life study of zinnia blossoms, this print departs from Hiratsuka's better-known architectural and landscape subjects to engage the kacho-e tradition through a distinctly modernist lens. Zinnias, with their dense, layered petals and sturdy stems, lent themselves well to the bold black-line carving Hiratsuka championed: the flat geometry of overlapping petals can be reduced to clean shapes carved directly into the cherry block, with negative space doing much of the compositional work. Rather than the delicate gradations and bokashi shading associated with Edo-period flower prints, a Hiratsuka treatment of zinnias would emphasize silhouette, contour, and the rhythm of repeated forms. The print exemplifies the sosaku-hanga commitment to jiga, jikoku, jizuri — self-drawn, self-carved, self-printed — meaning every cut, including the smallest petal edge, was made by Hiratsuka himself rather than delegated to a professional carver as in the shin-hanga workshop system. Floral subjects appear intermittently across his vast catalogue of more than 3,000 prints, serving as exercises in pure form between his more sustained engagements with temples, landscapes, and Buddhist iconography.