Shimada 1906

This woodblock print, called Shimada, was made by Utagawa Hiroshige. I can imagine him carving these tiny marks to describe the activity, and it makes me want to slow down and notice all the small things. The palette is limited – blues, creams, beiges – but there's a sense of space and depth that's pretty incredible. Just look at how the light seems to shift across the water. Hiroshige must have been thinking about how to convey not just a place but a feeling of being in that place. He's inviting us to see the world through his eyes. There’s so much detail! And I’m noticing the relationship between this and other landscape prints of the period. It's like artists are having this ongoing conversation. Each adding to the story, one print at a time. It’s a form of expression that is about ambiguity. It's about a sense of possibility.