Flying Cards

The title Karuta refers to traditional Japanese playing cards, which exist in several forms including uta-garuta (poem cards) and hanafuda (flower cards). A composition depicting flying or scattered cards would treat the rectangular or rounded card forms as both subject and compositional element, arranging them across the picture plane in dynamic diagonals. Each card would itself carry decorative printed imagery — flowers, grasses, or poem fragments — requiring detailed carving at small scale and careful registration across multiple color blocks. Bull, whose career is built on meticulous registration and carving precision, is well-suited to the technical demands of such a subject. The piece plays on the intersection of print culture and game culture that runs through Edo-period popular imagery.