Ichiikawa Chusha in the role of Mitsuhide 1926

Natori Shunsen made this print of Ichikawa Chusha as Mitsuhide, and you know, there is something lovely about the way that printmakers build an image. In this image, you can feel how Shunsen worked with the material of the woodblock, layering line and color. Look at the eyebrow line, it looks like it was carved in one stroke! And the way that the blue of the face blends into the white, it's not quite a smooth transition, but instead, the colors appear as if they are softly bleeding into one another. This blurring makes the print feel ghostly and ephemeral. What's great about printmaking is this conversation with the material - ink, wood, paper - all coming together. Like the work of Elizabeth Peyton, where the surface and the representation meet. Neither Peyton nor Shunsen allows you to forget you're looking at an image built through the materiality of art. Isn't that exciting?