Voltige II

"Voltige" — French for aerial acrobatics, trapeze work, or trick riding — and the "II" indicates a second plate in a series. The image likely depicts a figure or form in suspended motion, an airborne body or curving trajectory drawn out of the plate's black field by burnishing. Watanabe's serial titles (Voltige II, Memoire d'Eau II, and others) reflect his habit of returning to a motif across multiple plates rather than working in single editions, with each version typically a distinct composition rather than a state of the same plate. The mezzotint medium, with its capacity for soft tonal gradation, lends itself to imagery of movement: the trace of a body in flight or a swinging arc can be modelled through gradients of grey rather than outlined. The print shares the spare composition characteristic of his work, with the subject isolated against an unworked black ground and the plate's full depth of tone retained as the visual frame.