Brazier with hydrengea design c. 1920s

This ceramic brazier with a hydrangea design was made by Kamisaka Sekka, a Japanese artist who lived between 1866 and 1942. I can just imagine the artist considering the surface of this pot as a canvas, thinking about how to balance the blooms and foliage of the hydrangea with those cool, elegant lines. Those delicate botanical motifs are so evocative! I wonder if the artist considered the shape of the brazier and how the images would wrap around it, playing with the viewer's perspective as they turn it. And the way the artist uses color—those blues and greens popping against the creamy surface—it's a conversation between nature and craft, tradition and modernity. Artists are always looking at each other, aren’t they? You can see echoes of ukiyo-e prints here, but Sekka brings his own sensibility, his own way of seeing.