Rising Waves 1909 - 1910

Kamisaka Sekka made this woodblock print, Rising Waves, in Japan, sometime between the late 19th and early 20th century. There’s something so cool about the way he uses the wood grain to create these subtly textured areas of flat colour. It’s easy to imagine the carving process that’s gone into creating these large, blocky shapes. Look closely at the waves. They’re this pale sand colour with a thin grey outline. The forms are pared down, like a cartoon. It’s not about realism, it’s about rhythm and gesture. See how the shapes overlap? You get this sense of depth, even though everything is so flat. That area where the wave breaks at the top right, feels so calm, so distilled. It reminds me of the work of Ellsworth Kelly. There's a similar sensibility for reductive forms and the power of negative space. But ultimately art is just a long game of telephone, right? Each artist riffing off the last, and transforming it into something new.