Details

The bera's elongated body provides Ohno with an ideal vehicle for exploring color relationships. Bands of green, yellow, blue, and rose animate the fish's surface, while subtle gradations soften transitions between the various hues. The species' distinctive markings are rendered with exceptional clarity, emphasizing both biological specificity and ornamental beauty.

Particularly noteworthy is the artist's treatment of the fins, whose delicate transparency contrasts with the saturated coloration of the body. Through careful registration and printing, Ohno achieves a remarkable sense of luminosity, allowing the fish to appear almost suspended in light. The composition reveals the artist's close study of living specimens and his ability to translate observation into visual harmony.

Connoisseur's Note

Many of the most celebrated designs in Familiar Fishes of Japan depict species whose beauty is not immediately obvious to non-specialists. The bera exemplifies this aspect of the series. Rather than focusing exclusively on culturally prominent fish, Ohno broadened the visual vocabulary of Japanese nature imagery by drawing attention to lesser-known species.

For modern collectors, such works provide insight into the artist's ambitions as both educator and designer. The print encourages viewers to appreciate the diversity of Japan's aquatic world while simultaneously showcasing the extraordinary capabilities of modern woodblock production. Its appeal lies as much in its chromatic sophistication as in its zoological subject matter.