Yoshida Hiroshi (1876-1950) was, as one of my fellow visitors put it, “a Japanese bloke wot went to India”. Whilst he was there, Hiroshi travelled widely and made a series of wood block prints which are currently on display in the Ashmolean’s imaginatively titled Yoshida Hiroshi: A Japanese Artist in India exhibition.

Despite the timeless subject matter (only one print references British India), there is something quintessentially 1930-ish about these prints – their main interest seems to lie in the artist’s exploration of light and the absence of light.

Hiroshi is fascinated by light and several prints show the same scene at different times of day, a technique which, in its purest form, is unique to printing. As well as the vivid intensity of midday (“Snakecharmers”), many images are set in the so-called “golden hours” beloved of photographers, giving us rose tinted dawns (“Victoria Memorial”), the thin early morning light of the “Island Palaces of Udapur” or the fading light of dusk over a resting camel train.

Stylistically, the most Japanese prints are the three views of Kangchenjunga (the world’s third highest mountain) at different times of day. Graduated shades of blue take us from dark valleys, through increasingly distant foothills to even more distant peaks, with only the cragginess of the snow-capped mountain to indicate that we are far removed from the gentle volcanic slopes of Mount Fuji. The most Indian print is a splendid and ornate elephant that could have come straight from a Moghul wall painting.

This is a little gem of an exhibition - well worth popping in.