Two Pilgrims Gazing at a Tree Festooned with Prayers 1807 - 1891

Curator: Here we have Shibata Zeshin's "Two Pilgrims Gazing at a Tree Festooned with Prayers," made sometime between 1807 and 1891. It's a woodblock print in the Ukiyo-e style, currently housed at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Editor: Immediately, I'm drawn to the materiality. Look at the flat planes of color and how they create such a simplified space. It feels less like looking at a scene and more like observing layers of carefully applied pigments on paper. Curator: Precisely. It’s the labor-intensive nature of the medium – the carving, the inking, the careful registration of each block – that brings us closer to the spiritual aspect of the image. The repetitive nature of the printmaking mirroring the repetitive prayers. Editor: Interesting point! And that repetitive nature emphasizes the process and how Ukiyo-e democratized art production, making it accessible and consumable to the masses. Even the very specific prayers would become commodities in a spiritual sense, attached to this single, central tree, reproduced across an entire community and likely further beyond, almost mechanically. Curator: Right. And think about the weight of each of those prayers on those slender branches! To me, it feels incredibly hopeful but there's a vulnerability in seeing these intimate hopes and anxieties displayed so openly, almost offered to the wind. The tree acts as a fulcrum between the earthly and the spiritual. Editor: I also see tension between craft and high art. Zeshin’s attention to materials and printmaking, elevates what was, at that time, largely seen as a common practice. Curator: Zeshin often blurred such distinctions, imbuing everyday scenes with such personal meaning. There’s a humility in the composition – the figures aren't heroic, but just... present. Witnessing, hoping. Editor: In the context of labor, both material and spiritual, there is something powerful in the mundane acts of witnessing, making, and selling prayers in woodblock form. Curator: Absolutely. It’s a potent reminder of the connection between the physical world and our yearning for something beyond it, even when articulated through accessible methods and modest materials. Editor: Seeing the print this way invites new considerations for contemporary art production and what constitutes preciousness through skill and method.