Cityscape

A meisho-e treatment of an urban scene, almost certainly Tokyo, the city Mori inhabited his entire life. Born in Nihonbashi in 1898, the artist witnessed the city's transformation from a late-Meiji commercial district through the Great Kantō Earthquake, wartime destruction, and postwar rebuilding. His cityscapes tend to favour the geometry of rooftops, signage, lanterns, and crowded streets over the tranquil natural vistas associated with Hasui or Hiroshi Yoshida's shin-hanga views. The print likely employs the bold simplified outline and flat colour fields characteristic of his mature manner, in which pattern—roof tiles, brick courses, paper lanterns, shop banners—takes the place of atmospheric depth. As a sosaku-hanga artist, Mori carved and printed this image himself on washi using the baren, working without the publisher-led teams that supported earlier ukiyo-e production. The composition probably uses strong black armatures of architectural line to organise the picture, with selective passages of vermilion, indigo, or ochre keyed to the city's signs and street furniture.