From the Notebooks Mourning for Butterflies 1906

Fujishima Takeji made these butterflies sometime in his life, perhaps as an exercise, or perhaps as a labour of love. I'm really taken by the sense of joy they bring to the act of looking. There's something about the way the watercolor pools and blooms on the page that makes the wings seem almost iridescent. Take a look at the largest, blue butterfly. The pigment isn't uniform, is it? Instead, the wings feel alive, like they’re catching the light and shimmering. The textural contrasts add to the charm; delicate washes meet the fine, dark lines of the butterfly's bodies. It's like Takeji is saying that to capture something, you have to let it breathe. This reminds me a little of Odilon Redon's watercolors - that same interest in light, and, of course, metamorphosis. Art is a conversation between the past and the present, where artists continually respond to and re-imagine the ideas of their predecessors.