One Large and Four Small Butterflies with text beginning "Hatsuhana o...", from the series An Illustrated Collection of Butterflies for the Kasumi Group (Kasumi-ren gunchō gafu), poems by Gurendo and an associate c. 1804 - 1818

Editor: Here we have Kubo Shunman’s "One Large and Four Small Butterflies", part of the Kasumi Group series. It's a delicate print, quite subtle. What strikes you about this piece? Curator: Considering Shunman’s work, I'm drawn to the materiality. It's a woodblock print—think about the labor involved in carving those blocks, the specific inks used, the paper itself. How does this production method shape our understanding of the image? Editor: That’s fascinating! It changes how I see it. Curator: Exactly. It shifts from a simple representation of butterflies to an exploration of labor, value, and the social context of art production in Edo-period Japan. These prints were not simply aesthetic objects. Editor: So, it’s less about the butterflies themselves and more about the means by which they were brought to life? Curator: Precisely! And how those means reflect the society that produced them. Perhaps thinking about art as labor will inspire the way we look at art in the future. Editor: Thank you. That perspective really opens up a new way of seeing art.