(Robertson, 114) Instead of having a straight line development, his work moved forward in a series of abrupt stages.
A survey of the total range of his work - about 600 prints over 45 years - reveals distinct periods, each having major changes in subject matter, vocabulary, style, and color palette.
In spite of these various dynamics, each of Hodaka's periods is an exploration in the same basic direction, into what might be called modernist expressions of primitive human vitality.
In Chapter One of his book, A Fine Disregard: What Makes Modern Art Modern, 1990, Kirk Varnedoe says that modern art has four basic characteristics: (1) the flattened image instead of the illusion of space, (2) fragmentation and repetition in the composition, rather than the complete object, (3) primitivism, in the sense of an artifact revealing something latent deep within ourselves, and (4) the flight of the mind, the freedom to assume any point of departure, or to conceptualize as one wishes.
Hodaka clearly was a modern Japanese internationalist, and as such he broadened the artistic heritage of the Yoshida family.