Flowers [right of a triptych of Kegon Falls and Flowers] 1902

Ishikawa Kosai made this hanging scroll of flowers with ink and color on silk, and it's now at the Minneapolis Institute of Art. The layering of color here is delicate. Look at how the reds in the upper section of the scroll become more muted as they descend, settling into these almost smoky blues at the bottom. The brushstrokes, especially in the petals, remind me of watercolor painting, where the medium has a mind of its own and the artist is in constant conversation with the evolving image. I'm drawn to the way the blossoms seem to bleed into one another, creating this soft, almost dreamlike quality. It makes you think about the ephemeral nature of flowers, but also about the way that artists see the world, where everything is always shifting and in flux. There's a kind of quiet, meditative energy in these paintings, a gentle suggestion of the unseen forces that shape our world, like you might see in the work of Agnes Martin. It feels like an embrace of ambiguity.