Dancing Figure (Kamuro) 1960

Kaoru Kawano made this woodblock print, Dancing Figure, and the multiple blocks used to create the image show how printmaking is such a process-oriented medium. The solid blocks of color give the image a graphic quality, but also a flattened space in which everything is brought to the foreground. The colors are so simple, mostly black, white, brown and that awesome red of the kimono. Look closely at the way the white ink is printed to describe the form of the kimono, it reminds me of how you might describe a form with white chalk on a blackboard. The edges are soft, smudgy. The checkerboard pattern on the dancer's chest is a nice touch and the artist found a way to use both black and green to create that detail. It's a beautiful example of how artists can make a complex form seem simple. Her contemporary, Kiyoshi Saito, also used woodblock printing to explore the relationship between Japanese tradition and modernist abstraction. It’s a real conversation across time. It's what art is all about!