Twee ganzen 1900 - 1910

Ohara Koson made this print of two geese sometime between 1900 and 1936. The way that Koson uses color here—a muted palette, mostly grays, with touches of brown— creates an atmosphere of calm and reflection. The birds are rendered with such sensitivity and empathy. I can almost feel Koson’s attention to the way the light hits the feathers, how one goose tucks its head, while another looks up. I imagine him watching them for hours on end. Look at the geese in flight above. They have a very different feeling from the two grounded geese. It makes me think about the range of human experience, about feeling stuck on the ground, while at other times, we feel like we’re soaring. I wonder if Koson was thinking about his own place in the world, and how he was feeling on any particular day. I think this artwork might have been a meditation on the different states of being.