The Watchers and the Watched
Original title: The Watchers and the Watched
kurzbeschreibung
Several women in traditional Japanese dress sit on a bench making music, a scene Suzuki Harunobu captured in a colour woodblock print of about 1764–72, while other figures look in on the players through windows. The sheet is executed in ink and colour on paper.
Description
A woman with a shamisen sits at the front of the bench, other women beside her holding various instruments. Windows open above and behind them, and from these other people watch the music-making. The arrangement spreads broadly to left and right, the areas are filled evenly with colour and stay free of strong shadows; earth tones dominate, green and red provide accents, and the contours remain clear.
Context
During the Edo period Harunobu decisively advanced the multicolour woodblock print, the nishiki-e. This sheet belongs to the heyday of ukiyo-e, when elegant women and scenes of everyday life shaped urban culture. That women are observed through windows takes up a motif that recurs often in Japanese art and goes back to the courtly tradition.
Impact
The figures are distributed calmly and almost symmetrically, which gives the sheet a serene, nearly familiar mood. A quiet tension arises between the musicians in front and the curious glances from the windows. The muted colouring feels refined and unobtrusive.
Technique
Ink and colours were printed on paper, with multicolour printing combining fine contours and flat colour gradations — a process Harunobu brought to mastery. The sheet is in the vertical chūban format, about 28.3 × 21 cm.
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Source: Metropolitan Museum of Art · Public Domain (CC0 1.0)