"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  

"White Cat" by Junichiro Sekino

Funny how this white cat reminds me of landscapes, and the last white cat I wrote about on this blog (also with its tail cropped at the bottom of the picture plane,) too, reminded me of landscapes. Although Arthur Rigden Read's is more stately and Junichiro Sekino's is more stormy.

For this white cat I humbly offer this haiku:

Body as landscape
Pointed tuffs of fur as trees
Blown down in the wind

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 

"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.