Passage agité

The title ("Rough Passage" or "Agitated Crossing") departs from Watanabe's characteristic figure subjects and points toward the natural and shoreline imagery he began incorporating into his practice from the early 2000s onward. The print most likely depicts moving water — a stretch of disturbed sea or coastal channel — rendered in mezzotint's distinctive tonal idiom. The medium is well suited to such subjects: the rocked copper produces a uniformly dark ground from which the white crests and caught light of waves can be selectively drawn out by burnishing, while broader areas of subdued grey establish the body of the water. Where his nudes rely on continuous, sculptural modelling, a marine subject like this admits more discrete and broken passages of light. The print represents an extension rather than a departure of Watanabe's vocabulary, retaining the restraint, monochrome palette, and reliance on tonal contrast that organise the rest of his output, and aligning with his broader turn toward natural motifs in mid-career.