Boaters Watching a Fight 

Curator: Here we have Utagawa Toyohiro's "Boaters Watching a Fight," currently residing at the Harvard Art Museums. Editor: It's a powder keg! All that pent-up energy in the foreground figure, and then that brawl erupting above him... Curator: Indeed. The print's dimensions are 18.8 by 12.7 centimeters, a size that lends itself to mass production and circulation within 19th-century Japanese society. Editor: Right, these images were commodities, made to be consumed! But still, I feel a sense of… claustrophobia? Is it the water, the boats, or the fight itself? Curator: The woodblock printing process would have involved skilled artisans, highlighting a division of labor inherent in the art market. Editor: Absolutely, labor and entertainment intertwined, which is an interesting idea! Curator: Thank you for those observations, that does help see it in a different light.