Fan 

Curator: Let’s discuss this fascinating object, an ink painting on paper in the shape of a fan. It’s attributed to Kanō Motonobu and resides here at the Met. Editor: My first thought? It looks like a breezy summer picnic with maybe a mischievous monkey wreaking a bit of havoc. Curator: It’s rendered in monochrome ink, a starkness that emphasizes form and line, inviting consideration of Japanese figuration as a form, particularly concerning themes of social and class dynamics. We have people clustered in little groupings... It invites questions of community. Editor: Yes, everyone's dispersed yet engaged in some subtle social ballet. The monkey… perhaps the disrupting factor, maybe an anarchist? The black-and-white palette definitely casts it back in time—almost sepia-toned nostalgia. Curator: That reading definitely has merit. Let’s consider how the figures are arranged within the fan's format; this composition implicates a sense of spatial compression, where we, as observers, get implicated in their activity. What dynamics of power and marginalization are on view for consumption here, perhaps in relation to our modern sensibilities? Editor: Maybe that little monkey is trying to break down those implied social constraints—swinging his way through propriety, scattering leaves. Is that optimism or commentary? The artist captures something… almost… elemental in how folks just exist, unposed. It’s quite endearing. Curator: Exactly! That supposed spontaneity, that casual observation you are picking up on, becomes strategically employed. What ideological weight might a fan have carried during Motonobu’s period and is our consumption and aesthetic expectation in line with it? Editor: Good point. I initially only considered aesthetic pleasures here. Thinking historically gives an opportunity for the monkey's actions and characters' placement to assume a greater intention beyond the pastoral, doesn't it? I never used to consider what it must mean to truly *see*. Curator: It enriches how we observe its subtle complexity, how the ink defines everything and nothing simultaneously. It is a landscape—both literally and figuratively. Editor: From monkey mayhem to sociopolitical musings; I will never passively perceive fans in quite the same way. Thanks!