<b>TSUKIJI</b> / Kazuma Oda1925<B>SOLD</B></em>

Details

Persistent snow accumulates at Tsukiji. The landscape is awash in tonalities of white and gray, with soft yellow lights permeating through the night. A string of red-lit lanterns signifies the way to the city’s fish market. Figures seen battling the snow emerge from inside the market’s inner labyrinth. 

Oda Kazuma provides us with a stunning design, noteworthy for its beauty but also for its skillful means of accurately reproducing the atmosphere of a night’s snowfall. This accuracy is particularly compelling given the work is, in fact, a lithograph and not a woodblock print, which typically is better suited for depicting atmospheric qualities. In fact, Oda was quite successful in fashioning the overall design to read like a woodblock print.

At first blush, this design may not look modern, but the Western perspective, as well as the medium, gives away this work as one produced in the Modern Era by Japan's leading lithographer. Oda was fascinated by Japan's radical changing landscape, often depicting scenes of newly erected bridges, buildings, and the bustling nightlife of the city. The softer tones and more traditional subject give this work a warmth that is familiar and nostalgic and perhaps a wistful longing for a genteel and straightforward time.

Connoisseur's Note

This design is part of the artist’s series of landscapes that featured sites rebuilt after the Great Kanto earthquake of 1923. Tsukiji was affected considerably by the earthquake. In fact, Unichi Hiratuka, Oda’s fellow Sosaku Hanga artist, happened to immortalize the devastation of this site in his earthquake series of 1925.

This impression is in a fine state of preservation with exceedingly sharp and vivid colors and in overall excellent condition.