Washing Feet

The washing of feet — Christ's radical gesture of servant leadership at the Last Supper, when he takes basin and towel and washes each disciple's feet — is a subject Watanabe returned to in multiple works. The act's physical specificity (feet, water, the kneeling figure and the seated recipient) gives the katazome stencil technique a clear visual focus, and the theological inversion — the teacher serving the students, the Lord kneeling before the servants — is carried by the arrangement of the bodies in the composition rather than by any explanatory visual device.