Morning tears - Blue background

"Morning tears" belongs to Binnie's body of bijin-ga prints, in which the contemporary figure inherits the conventions of the Edo-period beauty print while assuming an emotional and sometimes erotic candour foreign to the historical genre. The "Blue background" subtitle indicates that this print is part of a small series printed against contrasting grounds — a working method recalling Utamaro's variant key-block printings against differing tones. The blue field is achieved through bokashi, the hand-applied gradation of pigment across the block, executed with brush and baren by the master printer in Japan with whom Binnie has long collaborated. The intimacy of the subject — a moment of private grief captured at first light — reflects Binnie's wider interest in psychological states rendered through subtle facial drawing and the tonal restraint that mokuhanga on washi permits.