Details
The image
A single stem rising across the sheet, leaves arranged along it at intervals, a bird or an insect placed where the eye lands last. The contour is even, the colour sits inside the line in flat areas and the paper does the work of the sky.
Where it comes from
Woodblock printing in nineteenth-century Japan was a joint production: the designer drew the outline, the cutter followed it exactly along the grain of the block and the printer laid each colour from a separate block. That division of labour produced a discipline visible in the result, contour first, colour second, no modelling and it was one of the strongest arguments European designers found against ornament.
On the wall
It suits a study, a bedroom or a reading corner, where a vertical image with generous empty space makes a small room feel taller. Because the palette is limited and the line is fine, it needs daylight and a wall that is not busy. In a group it should be the calmest piece.
In company
The Taguchi Tomoki collection is where the same argument is made again and again.Two sheets hung together read as a sequence; a third turns the sequence into a pattern, which is not what they were drawn for.
