Stencil for Illustrated Don Quixote (Ehon Don Kihōte) Possibly 1936

Curator: This is a stencil, for an illustrated Don Quixote by Serizawa Keisuke. A surprising, cross-cultural pairing, isn't it? Editor: It is! My first impression is that it feels like a dream. Dark, and filled with symbols that beckon but don't quite reveal their secrets. Curator: I find the black and white starkness so striking. The samurai figure on the left, encircled, contrasts beautifully with the figures on the right, suggesting a narrative divide. Editor: The samurai, so meticulously rendered, almost feels trapped within that circle. And those horizontal lines on the right–are they barriers? Are they perhaps rice paddies? Curator: Precisely! They evoke a sense of place, grounding the more fantastical elements. It is as if Don Quixote's world is filtered through a Japanese lens. Editor: Don Quixote, tilting at windmills... Here he is recast, perhaps as a more literal warrior, or maybe even a dreamer lost in translation. Curator: Or perhaps, it's about how every culture creates its own heroes, its own forms of madness. Serizawa seems to invite us to ponder the universal, and the beautifully, undeniably specific. Editor: A tantalizing reminder that stories, like stencils, can be used to create infinite variations.