Tree sparrow with young 1900 - 1936

Ohara Koson made this print of tree sparrows with young using muted brown and grey hues. The light is so soft that everything appears to be gently emerging and dissolving simultaneously. Imagine Koson’s focus, holding his breath while carving each line into the woodblock, like a kind of meditation. It's a lovely dance, this push and pull between capturing detail and allowing for suggestion. Look at how the bird in flight is so sharply defined while the ground below becomes a blur of strokes. I wonder if he felt a kinship with these little birds. Maybe he saw in them a reflection of his own family, the protective parent and the huddled young. Or maybe he was just drawn to their lively energy, the way they flit and flutter through the world. It reminds me of Morandi, who painted the same bottles over and over. It is what you learn when you keep painting the same thing again and again. Artists like Koson show us that painting can be a form of deep looking, a way of noticing the beauty and fragility of the world around us.