Woodpecker

A woodpecker — kera in Japanese — is rendered in Hiratsuka's 1930 woodcut with the alert, upright posture characteristic of birds clinging to vertical surfaces. The bird's chisel-like bill and the implied tree bark behind it connect the subject to Hiratsuka's own tool and material: the knife cutting into wood. The woodpecker and the woodblock artist are natural analogues, and his depiction suggests awareness of the parallel.