Mountain Fires (Yamabi), from the series Roaming Far from Home (Ryūrishō hanga saku), 1955

Hand-colored woodblock print

16 1/2 x 13 3/4 inches (41.9 x 34.9)

Philadelphia Museum of Art, Purchased with the George W.B. Taylor Fund, 1958  

1958-104-4

Known for his dynamic and rough-hewn depictions of poetry, myths, icons, and landscapes, Munakata was passionate about the medium of woodblock printing and consistently expressed the idea that art was not about appearance but essence. In his view the expressive potential of a print was inseparable from the hand of the artist, the act of carving, and the materiality of the wood from which it was made. In Mountain Fires Munakata characteristically combines poetry with an abstracted, colorful landscape, quoting a tanka poem by Yoshii Isamu (1886-1960) that may be translated as:

Look also to Izu

And to its mountain fires

So rarely seen

Izu, so dearly missed—

So, too, my beloved.

Anna Moblard Meier