Iwai Hanshiro IV 1765 - 1785

Curator: Looking at this intriguing woodblock print, “Iwai Hanshiro IV," likely created between 1765 and 1785, we see the skilled hand of Katsukawa Shunko. Its present home is the Metropolitan Museum of Art. What strikes you initially about it? Editor: A sense of gentle melancholy. She looks like she's about to sigh poetry into that little pipe, like the whole world hinges on the exhale. A very controlled but profound emotion in such simple means! Curator: Control is a great word. The Ukiyo-e tradition hinges on careful labor, right? Carving those woodblocks requires immense skill, painstaking attention to detail, each color a separate block, reflecting a highly developed commercial print industry that fueled the period’s artistic output. Editor: Absolutely. You see the love in each little cherry blossom on the kimono. But consider this figure, this actor, almost suspended in a quiet performance. Like a paused moment, between acts perhaps, caught in her private musings. So much vulnerability amidst the trappings. Curator: Precisely! The actor, Iwai Hanshiro IV, isn't merely a portrait; it's about capturing identity through a performative lens. The woodblock print itself becomes a means of disseminating and consuming these constructed identities, a commentary on celebrity culture and its manufactured image. Editor: Almost haunting how those industries remain unchanged, you know? The hunger for image. But more practically, looking at the way Shunkō uses line and color – particularly the restraint – there's such mastery. It’s economy creating abundance. Curator: I agree. Consider the pigment sourcing. Mineral-based colors in many cases, affecting the longevity and visual effect. And those blocks being recarved and reprinted multiple times, slowly losing the initial crispness. Wear, consumption, access are the stories told too. Editor: And perhaps a touch of her weariness ends up subtly imprinted in the work itself then... which reminds us it’s a privilege to ponder upon the hands that passed before and after us. Curator: Precisely. Material and moment interlinked! A fleeting glimpse offered permanence, through artistry and labour, available even now, today, for us to experience together.