Brocades of Edo 1903

Ikeda Terukata made this print, Brocades of Edo, location and date unknown, using woodblock printmaking techniques. The approach is rooted in process, with multiple blocks used to create the different colors and lines. What strikes me here is the flattening of space. The patterns on her kimono and the wall seem to push forward, while the background, especially that soft blue curtain, hovers ambiguously. There’s a tension between decoration and depth, and between the figure and the architecture. Look at the way the vertical lines of the wooden fence lead your eye up and out of the frame, or how the artist leaves large areas of the page untouched. Thinking of other artists who play with a similar tension between flatness and depth, I’m reminded of Matisse and his odalisques. Like Matisse, Terukata embraces ambiguity, letting the surface of the print be both a window and a wall.