Goyu 1906

This print, Goyu, by Utagawa Hiroshige, is one of a series depicting places on the Tōkaidō road, made with woodblock printmaking. I can imagine the artist meticulously carving the blocks, inking them, and pressing them onto paper. Think of all the labor involved, cutting away at the wood to make this image! This act of repetition and reproduction is so different from how I approach painting. The composition is divided into two sides. On the right, figures sit in an open shop. On the left, three figures appear to struggle with one another. What might be the story behind this struggle? The work is really about this question of narrative—of human dramas unfolding on an ordinary street. It reminds me of earlier landscape paintings—in its use of perspective and its attention to detail. But the artist also brought their own sensibility and style to the work. It shows how artists are always in conversation with one another, building upon the past while forging new paths.