↗Japan, Edo period (1615–1868) · early 1830s
South Wind, Clear Sky, from Thirty-Six Views of Mount Fuji
Katsushika Hokusai
ARTWORK STUDY
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Read the artwork notes and catalogue information.The Museum of Modern Art · Catalogue source ↗ · Image policy ↗
Japan · 1934
Umi no dowa (Fairy Tales of the Sea)
- Date
- 1934
- Medium
- Illustrated book with six woodcuts
- Dimensions
- Not listed in the source consulted
- Country / context
- Japan
- Movement / tradition
- Japanese art and printmaking
- Collection
- The Museum of Modern Art
- Attribution / role
- Museum attribution
- Pathway
- Japanese art and printmaking ↗
ABOUT THIS WORK
This illustrated book includes six woodcuts. It belongs to Onchi’s work across printmaking and book design, where page sequence and the relationship between text and image are as important as the isolated print.
Original educational overview · based on the linked museum recordPlace in the artist’s career
Compare the broadly dated figurative Mother and Child with the 1934 illustrated book and the abstract 1951 Lyric. Printed line, shape and colour can carry narrative or work without a recognisable subject. Because the first work is dated 1915–55, it cannot securely be presented as his youthful stage; the biography supplies context the object date cannot.
The artist’s practice
Artist-wide context; individual works may differ.
Media and surface
Woodcuts and illustrated books combine printed shapes with experiments in image-text relationships.
Marks and structure
Organic forms and abstract arrangements extend beyond descriptive outline.
Palette and light
Colour and tonal relationships can carry a lyrical effect without a recognisable subject.
A MOMENT TO LOOK
Start with what you can see: shapes, surface, colour and scale. How might the listed materials affect the way this object was made and experienced?
Looking prompt · an invitation to observe, not a historical interpretation.Follow a connection.
Explore the tradition ↗↗
↗Japan, Edo period (1615–1868) · 1833
Driving Rain at Shōno, from Fifty-Three Stations of the Tokaidō
Utagawa Hiroshige
↗Japan, Edo period (1615–1868) · c. 1793
The Flirtatious Type, from Ten Types in the Physiognomy of Women
Kitagawa Utamaro
↗Japan, Edo period (1615–1868) · c. 1830
A Low Tide Pentaptych
Utagawa Kuniyoshi