Umetaro Azechi

First encountered Umetaro Azechi's woodcuts at the British Museum. Stopped me in my tracks. His themes were consistent; mountain men and animals, landscapes. But within this, in a way like Giorgio Morandi, he found everything he needed to say. Then it's just about the language and economy; especially the way he solves the junction between forehead and nose or the abstraction of the body.



This image is distilled to a greater degree, with no doubt that the figure is one and the same as his habitat. The landscapes hold more variety and invention in their composition, even though some are very small.