Les Lapins (Rabbits)

Henri Guérard got a solid education in Japanese art when Louis Gonse chose him to illustrate some 200 objects for his L'Art japonais (1883). In 1890 when Guérard interrupted his career as a painter-etcher to explore woodcut, Hokusai's spare animal images were clearly on his mind. The power of this stolid pair comes from the stark light-dark silhouettes, overlapped shapes, minimal modeling, and brilliant use of the buff paper as a color.