"Old Man" by Karhu Clifton

Purple shadows creep
Across sun-soaked paths, as he
Leans into the wind

"Twilight Snow at Hashiba" by Hiroshige

By the falling snow
Three worlds are joined together
Water, earth, and sky

"Amida Waterfall" by Hokusai

Amida Waterfall on the Kiso Highway is from Katsushika Hokusai's series A Journey to the Waterfalls of all the Provinces. My wonderful husband Will gave it to me for winter solstice. I have ordered it a frame and am eager to display it on a wall in our home.

I wrote about another print from that series - Kirifuri Waterfall - back in 2010, the year I started this blog. I wrote about how the streams of water read like massive, exposed tree roots. This waterfall reads very differently. The stream at the top appears like a moon streaked with blue wood grain. Streams then fall almost straight down; a long line of parallel stripes of various widths, like a bar code. The work elegantly expresses the memorizing beauty and grandeur of a natural monument. As in all of Hokusai's waterfalls (and most of his landscapes in general) the people are dwarfed by the subject, and seem so much more nimble and transient.

Coincidentally, that blog post from 2010 is also the only one which includes a photograph of my beloved.

"Muroto Cape" by Hagiwara Hideo

Rain on rocky shores;
Many colors beset the
Soft, pervasive grey.

"Sunset Glow at Sakurajima" by Hagiwara Hideo

We claw our way up and tumble back down, and now drift by, slowly, silently, in the waning light of day, witnessing the exquisite aftermath of erosion.

Summer fireworks above Ryogoku bridge in Tokyo by Takahashi Hiroaki

Silence has been broken; a rapid concatenation of great bangs marked the start.

Stillness is shattered. The sky torn asunder. Light gleans through slits that rain down from two laden blooms. Jagged snakes of fire and smoke rise from a distant point on the horizon. All this is giddily reflected in the water below; flames dance beside dark boats that merely drift.

The bridge piers - haunting black silhouettes - hold firm their burden amid the chaos.

"Cherry Blossom and Crow" by Ogata Gekko

Surrounded by air
He inquires with levity
There is room to breath

"Hotaru Kago" (Firefly Cage) by Yamamoto, Shōkoku

I'm seriously digging the thousands of high resolution images of Japanese woodcuts now available for viewing on the Library of Congress website. Tonight this particular image caught my attention for a while, not least of all because I spent the evening gathered around a fire with a few friends, our kids trying to catch fireflies to put in jars. Some simple activities are inherently enjoyable to people across time and culture.

I love the geometry of the composition; how the strong vertical lines and patterns emphasize the soft and playful curves outlining shoulders and feet. It mirrors how the two women are still and focused in their observation of the fireflies, while the children seem to dance around in restless delight.

Friendship binds us, or
Is it the magic of
Bioluminescence? 

"Another Night" by Hidehiko Gotou

Where We Met A torch floats up the side of the hill, breaking the darkness as I hold you tight. I do not know if you slide down or crawl upwards, or whether the yellow circle is your moth-eye or the button of my sleeve. Stone endures, but memory is illusion. Our Fossils Beyond what is what Our form lies on the border More than you and me

"Flowers of Edo" by Fumio Fukita

Three years ago I wrote about a Japanese woodcut of a single explosion of firework (by Kasamatsu Shiro) that resembled a great flower in the sky. That blossom looked like a sunflower. This one seems more like a chrysanthemum, which strikes me as unseasonable. Fireworks in real life are colorful, huge, and stunning, but also moving and a bit chaotic. In contrast, the composition here is like an altar. This blossom of concentric circles is like a Great Eye, stationary, balanced, and watching over its lowly subjects on the ground.

I cannot help but feel that this is an image of fireworks that is not so much about fireworks as it is an expression of awe and yearning for order in an unpredictable, ever-changing, and often frightening universe.

"Tree Blossoms" by Hajime Namiki

These are but whispers
Throng of ghostly butterflies
So fleeting, so fair

"Sleeping Nude" by Junichiro Sekino

A woman, naked, lies on a bed over there like an afterthought. I notice the length of the bed behind her bent figure and realizing it is too small for her, and I wonder if it a child's bed? Other objects in the room -the window blinds, the pattern on the carpet - seem relatively large, further diminishing the bed and the sleeping figure. Though she has the proportions and curves of a woman, there is something playful and innocent here. A song pops into my head:

Raindrops are falling on my head
And just like the guy whose feet
Are too big for his bed
Nothing seems to fit

The lyrics are sung cheerily over a music box melody, and I smile.

This scene doesn't seem to be about her, though all compositional cues point back to her. This scene seems to be about us watching her. Her nakedness and her slumber emphasize her vulnerability. Her bed is undersized, but yet a world unto itself, with lines, layers and patterns suggestive of a portal to another place. In contrast, the room around her is static. Mostly hard vertical and horizontal lines. I imagine she is having an adventurous dream.

Raindrops keep falling on my head
But that doesn't mean my eyes
Will soon be turning red
Crying's not for me 'cause,
I'm never gonna stop the rain
By complaining,
Because I'm freeNothing's worrying me  

"Five Reclining Black Cats" by Tadashige Nishida

A single black mass
So many heads with eyes to
Peer, gawk, squint or blink

More Cats by Inagaki Tomoo

If I'm featuring a short run of haikus in response to cat prints by Japanese printmakers, I just gotta include one by Inagaki Tomoo.

A muscular pair of gargoyles
Perched on the midnight watch
The moon winks

Two Cats and a Lemon by Ido Masao

What can I say, I'm on a haiku-paired-with-cat-prints-by-Japanese-printmakers streak. Although Ido Masao is a wee bit more contemporary than Kiyoshi Saito or Junichiro Sekino. I predict the streak will last through Halloween.


Juicy, black squiggle
Mirrored by a pale foil
Calligraphy come to life

Two Views of Nihonbashi: Junichiro Sekino and Utagawa Hiroshige

The first print shown here is Nihonbashi by Junichiro Sekino and the second is Clear Weather after Snow at Nihonbashi Bridge by Utagawa Hiroshige.

I sit here pondering how to cross the divide.

I look above and listen to the revs of countless engines and the continuous whoosh of unseen cars overhead. There is a bit of yellow and blue, but all else is a grey hum. It is a place I have been to many times before and will be again. A place where everyone simultaneously waits, feeling small and powerless, but with a heightened awareness of an unceasing journey through space and time.


I shift my eyes to the image below, and I see more, but things are quieter. I am far away; a witness in the distance. This is not a place I've ever set foot. The sounds of nature form an auditory backdrop in the same way that the mountain and distant trees and sky form the visual background.

Again, there is blue, and hints of red, but mostly all is grey and bleached and impersonal. As with the other, there is the sense of a steady movement forward, this time more leisurely - footsteps, gliding boats - but every bit as ephemeral.

"We are ghosts, hungry for something bigger than what our lips are kissing." -Anis Mojgani 

"Cat in Bush" by Inagaki Tomoo

Inagaki Tomoo is sometimes called the Cat Artist because of how prolific he was depicting highly stylized felines. The style of most of his prints looks specific to the 50's and 60's, with most of his cats even more simplified and geometric than this example.

He thinks he's hidden
But two bright, yellow eyes have 
Given him away 

Two Landscapes by Umetaro Azechi

I've written once before about a work by the Japanese artist Umetaro Azechi. He was an avid lover of nature and mountain climber, and I wrote about his woodcut Mountain Man I.

His woodcuts are very distinct for its "simple and rustic" look (as the artist himself put it), unique approaches to depicting space (a sort of flattening in order to see everything at once from above, which reminds me of traditional Inuit prints and wall hangings), and cool, clear colors. The blog Funomena has a good article about discovering Azechi's work.

I thought these two woodcuts of mountains compared well together. In the first, everything seems to rise up. The white road curves slightly as it moves through a scattered handful of houses, toward a hill that seems like a great rolling wave. Puzzle pieces float on the surface of the wave's dip like broken ice. Behind the wave rises what seems to be a long-dormant volcano, The flattened tip of this tallest mountain bears a black and blue gash that peels down the side.

In the second woodcut, everything seems to pull down. A congregation of dwarfed hills attentively observe a house, which sits in a happy, little green and speckled pool. A few even smaller hills or pointed rocks descend into the white valley, edging closer to the house, like curious children.

What strikes me most in both of these prints is how much the mountains and structures seem alive and possessing human-like personalities, motivations, and relationships with each other. There is a great sweep of collective interactions taking place within the scene as a whole. These simple and still images are also folk tales and portraits of small communities.

Looking at these, I feel so small, but also so utterly welcomed.

"Sea of Japan" by Junichiro Sekino and "Georgetown Locks of C&O Canal" by Unichi Hiratsuka

I happened to be looking at both of these woodcuts this week, and thus came to contemplate the similarities. Both feature a composition with thick, diagonal bands that come in from both sides and meet in the center. What first grabbed my interest in both was these diagonal bands. They pull the viewer's gaze in, giving each scene a sense of gravity.

In Sekino's image, the bands fall below the center and the event taking place is violent, churning waters. The calamity of the rolling and spitting waves is further emphasized in comparison to the stillness in front of the bands and in the black part of the sea seen in the distant horizon. The bands themselves curve, bending to the water's fury. The diagonal lines do not connect, but rather, they slip past one another, leaving more space to accommodate their own movements with the angry sea. The rendering is delicate and the changes in layers of color is subtle, giving the whole scene a thoughtful air, despite the tumultuous subject.

In Hiratsuka's more stoic, yet equally bold image, the diagonal bands are solid black, straight, and connect with each other just above the center. Instead of acquiescing to an torrid sea, here, unbending planks direct the river. The waters held back are calm and airy, like skinny clouds, before they discharge under the barrier, strained into a neatly contained waterfall.

In both works, the bands depict something man-made, intended to in some way control or mitigate our interaction with a body of water. I come away from both contemplating power, predictability, and the balance between deference and restraint.

"Nishikori Castle" by Okiie Hashimoto

I have turned the corner, and it is as if I am seeing colors for the first time, or seeing the first spring after a long and dreary winter. The castle itself seems to glow against the dark thicket of trees bearing geometric, red berries. So much here is pointy. Sharp are the black breadcrumbs that mark the trail I am to follow. Yet, swathes and bulging shapes of foliage are served to me like a fresh garden salad or bowl of ripe fruit. Even the grey stones invite me to run my fingers along their cool, smooth surfaces as I prepare to follow this brightly lit path and feast.