Grasshoppers on Rice Plants 1910

Ohara Koson made this print of grasshoppers on rice plants sometime between the late 19th and early 20th century. I can imagine Ohara, with his materials, thinking about the surface, and then just making it. It’s the kind of art where it looks like it just happened, but it’s also clear that he labored over the mark making. The longer you look at it, the more the forms emerge. There’s a stillness, but a strange sense of movement, too. It's a contradiction, because how do you communicate stillness and movement at the same time? Well, that’s what artists do, right? It makes me think of other artists, like Hokusai and Hiroshige, also using the medium of printmaking. They must have been looking at each other's work, constantly inspiring one another to see things in new ways. When I look at this print, I feel like I'm part of a long conversation that stretches back in time. It reminds me that all art is made in relation to other art.