Doves

Doves — hato — in Amano's early-career work represent one of the bird subjects through which he first developed his graphic vocabulary. Doves in Japanese art and culture carry associations of peace and gentleness, their soft gray plumage and cooing call making them among the most emotionally benign of bird subjects. Amano's abstract treatment would have reduced the dove to its essential forms: the rounded body, the small head, the particular quality of the folded wing — creating compositional shapes that could then be arranged geometrically across the picture plane.