Blue and White space - 366 1974

Funasaka Yoshisuke made this print with blue ink and a perfectly un-smudged white space. I imagine Funasaka, in his studio, puzzling over this image, maybe even changing his mind about it a bunch of times. The regular grid of blue dots is a constant, a given, but the relationship of the white lozenge, its tilt and ragged edges, must have been something he considered carefully. There's such a feeling of care in the way each plane meets the other, a kind of geometric dance. The colors he added, these small accents along the white space edges, are very human, and soften any stark geometry. They remind me of Agnes Martin's colored lines, but Yoshisuke creates his shapes through the meeting of planes rather than lines. All art is a conversation with other art, and with Yoshisuke, you can feel him talking.