Japanse geisha's op weg naar een theehuis, Kioto 1900 - 1907

This hand-colored albumen print shows Japanese geishas on their way to a teahouse in Kyoto. When you look at the kimonos, you can see the subtle variations in color, and I love how that brings out a sense of movement, like the geishas are not static beings but caught in a fleeting moment. The way the light hits the fabric, creating these soft, diffused highlights, adds a layer of depth and dimension to the scene. Notice how the texture of the paper itself seems to subtly interact with the colors, almost like a dance between surface and image. In the bottom left corner, there’s this gentle gradation of color in the stone, and it gives the whole piece a dreamlike quality. T. Enami’s use of hand-coloring reminds me a little of early 20th-century photorealist painters, who were also interested in capturing the world around them in a way that felt both real and mediated. As with much great art, the more you look, the more you see.