Verzameling ontwerpen - acht 1901 - 1904

This is Verzameling ontwerpen - acht, a collection of designs by Tsuda Seifû, made sometime during his lifetime between 1880 and 1978. Just looking at it, you can see the hand of the artist, not only in the brushstrokes of the calligraphy, but in the texture of the paper itself. You can see its fibres and imperfections which gives it a feeling of something very intentionally made. The pale background colour is created with an all-over covering, an even and unmodulated wash. This allows the silvery-white geometric forms and the strong black brush marks to really stand out, creating a dialogue between the background and foreground. I can feel a sense of compositional balance and simplicity in this work. It reminds me a little of Agnes Martin, who also had an interest in the poetics of geometric forms and simple compositions. What’s so cool about art is that you can never really pin down what it means, there’s always room to interpret and re-interpret!