Catalogue of an exhibition
The Print Room
The floating world and the engraver's line
Foreword
Prints ask for a different visit — closer, slower, one at a time, numbers in hand. This catalogue sets the Japanese masters beside the German one and lets the line itself argue across three centuries.
The floating world
Edo, wood, water.
Cat. 1
Katsushika Hokusai
Under the Wave off Kanagawa (Kanagawa oki nami ura), also known as The Great Wave, from the series "Thirty-Six Views of Mount Fuji (Fugaku sanjūrokkei)", 1826
The most famous wave in art, and still the least tame.
Cat. 3
Utagawa Hiroshige
Hamamatsu, from the series "Fifty-three Stations of the Tokaido (Tokaido gojusan tsugi)," also known as the Tokaido with Poem (Kyoka iri Tokaido), 1832
Full entry →Cat. 4
Utagawa Hiroshige
Mitsuke: Ferries Crossing the Tenryu River (Mitsuke, Tenryugawa funawatashi), from the series "Fifty-three Stations of the Tokaido (Tokaido gojusan tsugi)," also known as the Tokaido with Poem (Kyoka iri Tokaido), 1832
Hiroshige's rain falls in straight lines and lands like weather anyway.
The engraver's line
Nuremberg, copper, patience.
Cat. 5
Albrecht Dürer
Adam and Eve, 1504
Dürer never drew a line that was only an outline — every one is also a shadow, a texture, a weight.