Spiegel bij kamerscherm 1823

Curator: What strikes me first about this 1823 woodblock print, "Spiegel bij kamerscherm" or "Mirror by Room Screen," by Utagawa Kunisada, is how surprisingly intimate it feels. The cool blues and neutral background focus my attention entirely on this almost ghostly face in the mirror. Editor: Ghostly is a great word for it! It reminds me of those slightly unsettling Victorian post-mortem photographs. The way the face almost floats, detached from the body, adds to the surreal, dreamlike quality. What I find curious is the interplay of reflection and reality here. Mirrors, since antiquity, are such loaded symbols. What readings do they conjure for you in this print? Curator: For me, it plays with the idea of perception versus reality, right? That reflection is a window into something hidden. But here it is staged, curated, the artist drawing attention to the performance involved in seeing and being seen, the theatricality of the self. Even the kamerscherm, or folding screen, sets the stage. Editor: Exactly! Think about how screens operate within Japanese art. They frame space, suggest depth, conceal and reveal. I also keep considering this towel draped in the back. How very odd and yet somehow essential to this strange and slightly unsettling mise-en-scène, what do you suppose it signifies? Curator: Good question! I imagine that cloth is both utterly prosaic and strangely profound – suggesting modesty, domesticity, but also perhaps absence, a life briefly interrupted, hanging in the background... I get the sense of transience or perhaps of being haunted by your own appearance... by a vision that is fleeting! Editor: I can almost sense a hint of melancholy, even. This print captures a moment of private contemplation that somehow feels universal, and still intimate. Curator: Well said. It lingers, doesn’t it? Almost refusing to let go of your gaze, even as you walk away.