Two Ducks 

Curator: Let’s consider this lovely woodblock print entitled "Two Ducks." The artist is Keisai Eisen. Editor: Immediately, the vibrant colours catch the eye. There's such an appealing tension between the ducks themselves, so intricately rendered, and the minimalist treatment of the water. Curator: Indeed. The composition uses negative space cleverly. See how the artist uses bands of blue tone and subtle gradations in the water to evoke depth and movement with just a few carved lines. Editor: It’s incredible. You can almost feel the delicate ripple of the water around those ducks, but how does it all come together? What about the printing? What material and labor produced the colour here? Curator: Ukiyo-e prints like these involve a collaborative effort. The artist would design the image. Block carvers, guided by the artist's drawings, would cut a separate woodblock for each color in the design. Finally, printers applied the ink and transferred the image to paper. It’s a delicate choreography. Editor: And to think of the repetitive labor involved... it humanises the beauty here, challenging us to rethink assumptions about craft and design. Each print, unique by touch, tells a wider cultural story too, yes? Curator: Precisely. This kind of naturalism was popularized among the merchant class who saw reflections of themselves in these accessible landscapes and bird-and-flower studies. Editor: I think reflecting on the material world that the artist and those craftspeople knew really shifts one’s perspective in looking. Curator: Understanding the careful balance of labor and nature makes the beauty all the more rich. Editor: The colour holds different resonance too, I find, after that context.