Evening Gloom of Japan No. 3

Created in 1958 using ink and color on paper, this woodblock print takes the evocative title "Evening Gloom of Japan," suggesting a national mood as much as a time of day. The late 1950s were a period of intense transformation in Japan, with rapid industrial growth colliding with lingering postwar trauma and the displacement of traditional culture. Masaji's title captures something of this twilight atmosphere, neither fully dark nor light, a country suspended between what it had been and what it was becoming. The abstract composition translates this condition into visual terms through somber tonal values and compressed, heavy forms. The "No. 3" designation indicates that Masaji returned to this theme multiple times, finding in the concept of evening gloom a productive tension between darkness and residual light.