Nissaka (The New Tokaido), Sekino Junichirō

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Sekino Jun'ichirō began studying printmaking under Onchi Kōshirō in 1939. A fine craftsman and a sensitive observer of human character, he produced a number of remarkable portraits of actors and early sōsaku hanga artists. He also designed prints of architecture in a simplified representational style. This work is from his series of the Fifty-Three Stations of the Tōkaidō, which he began in 1959. It shows Nissaka, the twenty-sixth station, which is identified by its yellow mountain road. The Tōkaidō theme was very popular in the nineteenth century when Andō Hiroshige designed several famous versions of the series in the mid-1850s.

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Carving his blocks with traditional chisels, Sekino uses a wide range of wood grain types to achieve various textures. When printing the different areas of color, he overlapped and layered the forms to create a rich surface design. Here he has brought fresh inspiration to the time-honored Tōkaidō Road theme, depicting a contemporary garden scene from the town of Nissaka. The dried lotus stems and leaves jutting from the pond have been abstracted; dynamic movement is created by swirling rings of water. The dominant browns and grays effectively convey wintry sentiments.