Morning Glory 1946

Koshiro Onchi’s “Morning Glory” is a woodblock print with an approach to mark making which is very graphic, almost like a collage. The texture of the paper is really important here. You can see the way that the ink sits on the surface. It's not absorbed, but almost floating, which gives the image a kind of ethereal quality. The color palette is very simple: a warm orange and a cooler green set against the color of the paper. Look at how the orange square sits at the top. It’s flat and unmodulated. Next, notice how the orange of the flower is softer, and more inviting because it has more texture. Onchi, like the futurist Umberto Boccioni, and maybe even Henri Matisse, shared a fascination with capturing movement and energy in their work, even within the restrictions of a static medium like printmaking, or painting. It shows you how art is really just a conversation between artists, across time and place. It embraces uncertainty, leaving room for interpretation rather than prescribing fixed meanings.