Wedding at Cana

Dated 1968, the Wedding at Cana — the first of Jesus' signs in John's Gospel, where he transforms water into wine at a wedding feast at the request of his mother Mary — gives Watanabe a subject full of communal festivity, the best occasion for the katazome technique's warm, celebratory palette. The six stone jars filled with water, the steward's astonishment at the quality of the new wine, the wedding party's celebration — all are rendered in the mingei tradition's joyful visual language. The miracle is embedded in the ordinary happiness of a community gathering.