#71 Considering Lao-tse (7)

Lao-tse, the Daoist philosopher Laozi, is the textual anchor for this etching, the seventh plate in a sub-series within Hayashi's broader "Considering" framework. Tagged abstract, the print likely translates the aphoristic compression of the Daodejing into mark — passages of etched line and aquatint behaving like ideographic notation rather than illustration. The "Considering" series is Hayashi's recurring meditative format: a named subject (a village, a thinker, a season) is revisited across successive plates, each a fresh act of attention rather than a definitive image. Technically, prints from his 2003 group typically combine drypoint, etching, and aquatint with chine-collé inserts on gampi, producing a layered surface whose translucency lets the underlying paper participate in the tone. Within Hayashi's output, the Lao-tse plates extend an East Asian textual lineage that runs alongside his landscape-derived imagery; the philosopher's preoccupation with emptiness, flow, and the unforced act maps onto the artist's preference for sparse marking and unworked paper as compositional material.