Cormorant Fishermen

This print from the Showa Shokugyo Emaki depicts ukai, the ancient Japanese practice of cormorant fishing, most famously associated with the Nagara River in Gifu. The usho (cormorant master) handles tethered birds trained to dive for sweetfish (ayu) by torchlight from a flat-bottomed boat. Wada renders the nocturnal scene with strong silhouetting against firelight, exploiting the contrast between the warm orange of the kagaribi pine torches and the deep indigo of the river. The technique requires careful color registration and likely employed bokashi gradation in the water and sky to suggest the play of flame on the surface. Within Wada's seventy-two-print cycle of Showa occupations, ukai represents one of the most ritualized and visually theatrical of the documented trades, contrasting with the workshop scenes of coopers and dollmakers. The subject also connects Wada's practice to the long meisho-e tradition of Hiroshige and earlier ukiyo-e masters, who repeatedly depicted Nagara cormorant fishing as an iconic image of regional Japan.