Le regard de Faro du 30 avril

The title — The Gaze of Faro on 30 April — names a specific subject and a specific date, suggesting a portrait keyed to a particular moment of observation. Faro is most plausibly a named animal, often a dog, given the convention of titling works after a companion's gaze. Animal portraiture of this kind has precedent both in the Japanese kacho-e (bird-and-flower) tradition, which extends to mammals and aquatic creatures, and in European print portraiture of pets. Mokuhanga's water-based pigments and the absorbency of washi make it well-suited to rendering fur and the soft transitions of an animal's eye and muzzle, particularly through bokashi — the gradated wiping of pigment on the block before printing. The dated title also locates the work within a diaristic mode, treating the print as a record of a specific encounter rather than a timeless image. Dated 2026, this is among Rodride's recent works.