Silk Dyeing

Two figures in yellow straw hats and dark indigo work clothes handle long, sinuous skeins of dyed silk in pink, yellow, teal, and pale blue against a solid black ground, the threads looping and swirling to fill most of the composition. A wooden rack or frame stands at right beside a stylized bluish tree, with pale abstract branch or cloud forms at upper left. *Silk Dyeing*, a woodblock print by Fumio Kitaoka (date unknown), uses flat color areas and patterned mark-making within the strands to render the dye work.