Puppet Theater 1913

Suga Tatehiko made this ink and color on paper drawing called Puppet Theater sometime in his lifetime, and it's now held at the Minneapolis Institute of Art. The drawing has a really interesting composition. On one side there's a theatre with puppets, and the other side is filled with text. There is a strong tension between the verbal and the visual here; it’s like two different ways of communicating. I'm struck by the way Tatehiko uses line in this piece. Look at the way he draws the puppets, and how the marks are so confident and assured. The lines don’t waver, they are definitive. It's like he knew exactly what he wanted to say with each stroke. The colors are also really restrained. There's not a lot of flashy color to distract you from the story, and I think that's really effective. This piece reminds me of the work of William Kentridge, who also uses drawing and text to tell stories in a really compelling way. Art is always an ongoing conversation, right?