Bird Catcher

The title describes a figure engaged with birds — a child holding a net, cage, or perch, with one or several birds settling on or escaping from her grasp. Tagged within the Birds and Flowers category, the print plays against the [kacho-e](/glossary/kacho-e) tradition of Japanese woodblock by translating that subject into Western intaglio: etched contour lines for the bird's plumage and the girl's dress, aquatint shading for backgrounds, and a chine collé sheet introducing a contrasting paper colour behind the figures. Hand coloring picks out individual feathers and ribbons in muted, desaturated tones. The bird-catching motif has a long history in European print iconography, appearing in Bruegel, Goya, and nineteenth-century children's books, and Ando's treatment leans toward the latter: the act reads as both play and capture, in keeping with the lightly threatening domestic register that recurs across her body of work.