Details

In Landscape with Bear, Tadashige Ono turns his gaze to the northern reaches of Japan, offering a raw and meditative glimpse into an animistic ritual tradition that predates the modern nation-state. The small bear cub, rendered in earthy crimson tones and bowed in posture, stands within a rustic enclosure — not merely confined, but poised between life and ceremony. Around it, stylized fencing, thatched wood structures, and a few suggestive implements hint at preparation. Though modest in scale, the print holds profound gravity, portraying a moment in the cycle of spiritual communion and release practiced by the indigenous Ainu peoples of Hokkaidō and the Russian Far East.

This image reflects a well-documented Ainu custom known as iomante, in which a bear cub is raised by the community and ceremonially sacrificed upon reaching maturity — not as an act of cruelty, but as a sacred gesture to release the animal’s spirit and send it home to the gods. Ono, likely traveling to Hokkaidō or northern Honshū during the late 1930s, captures the quiet solemnity before such a rite. His subdued palette and heavily textured forms speak not only to the harshness of the land but to the spiritual force that imbues it. This is a landscape not of mere observation, but of reverence.

Connoisseur's Note

Landscape with Bear is among the earliest recorded works by Tadashige Ono and offers a rare look at the formative period of one of Japan’s most socially engaged and stylistically bold printmakers. While his later works often depict the industrial skyline and aftermath of war, this 1938 print reveals a quieter, more ethnographic lens — but with the same underlying empathy and moral complexity that would define his mature career.

Printed in Ono’s signature rough-hewn carving and subdued earth tones, the work echoes the visual vocabulary of German Expressionism while remaining deeply rooted in Japanese folk material. This impression is particularly notable for its provenance: it originates from the former Tadashige Ono Museum, which held a significant archive of the artist’s works before its disbandment in recent years. Scarce and unusually intimate, Landscape with Bear stands as a solemn artifact — not only of Ainu tradition, but of Ono’s early attempts to honor and preserve cultural memory through the tradition of woodblock prints.