Before the Mirror 1932

Hirano Hakuhō made this woodblock print, Before the Mirror, and I imagine him with his chisels, carving away at blocks of wood to create all these patterned surfaces, this intimate scene. I think about him, how he decided on this composition with its combination of flat planes and meticulous detailing. He’s showing us a woman dressed in a patterned red kimono, attending to her hair in the mirror. Look closely at the way the pattern of her kimono contrasts with the geometric design of the cushion she’s sitting on. It's these kinds of contrasts that give the print its dynamic energy. There’s a tension between the real and the reflected, the surface and the depth. I wonder if he was thinking about the fleeting nature of beauty, or the performative aspects of identity, so central to the tradition of Japanese woodblock prints. He probably wasn’t alone in thinking about this - artists are always in dialogue with each other, across generations, riffing on similar themes, finding new ways to express the complexities of human experience.