Playing Western music

This print documents musicians performing on Western instruments, reflecting the steady adoption of European classical music within Showa-era Japanese cultural life. The figures likely appear in formal Western dress, posed with violin, wind instruments, or seated at a piano, the equipment of the trade carrying the identification of profession. Wada's compositional approach in this series isolates the performers against a flat or minimal ground, with flat color planes and assured outlines typical of his documentary mode. Carved into multiple woodblocks and printed on washi using the baren, the work demonstrates Wada's synthesis of Western yoga training under Kuroda Seiki at the Tokyo School of Fine Arts with Japanese mokuhanga technique. Unlike traditional yakusha-e of named kabuki actors, the print depicts a generic occupational type representing the profession itself. The image takes its place within Wada's wider catalogue of Showa working life, alongside companion prints of Noh performers, pilots, pearl divers, and pilgrims. Wada's measured palette - he later compiled an influential reference book on Japanese color harmony - is evident in the controlled tonal contrasts characteristic of the series.