Studies
Plates made to be argued with
Original plates made for this site, each with a note on the composition. Each one sets itself a single problem: one line and nothing else, a lantern and a shoulder, a coil of rope with no body near it. The note under each plate says what the picture is attempting and where the look is borrowed from, so the study can be judged rather than only looked at.
The plates on this site are original studies made for it. They are worked in the manner of a tradition rather than taken from one: they are not historical works, they reproduce no existing picture, and they are attributed to no artist. Where a study is described as after sumi-e, after a woodblock print or after a modern photograph, that names the look the image imitates, not the hand or the century that made it.
A composition is an agreement, drawn
Nobody posed for these plates. The arrangements they imitate were worked out between people who trusted each other enough to hold still.
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