Soft Steps
by Sarah Brayer
- Date:
- Not set
- Medium:
- Woodblock print
- Format:
- Oban
- Source:
- Japanese Art Open Database
by Sarah Brayer
$2,000–$8,000. Smaller works: $2,000–$3,500. Key value factors: Brayer's unique luminous technique on handmade washi appeals to collectors of both Japanese prints and contemporary art.
The title suggests quieted footfalls, perhaps on tatami mats, fresh snow, or moss-covered temple paths, and this mokuhanga print translates that hushed quality into visual form. Brayer's interest in synesthetic translation, rendering sound or touch as color and light, shapes a print concerned with gentleness and deliberate movement. The "soft" descriptor may also refer to the quality of light in the scene, the diffused illumination of an overcast day or a shoji-screened interior. Mokuhanga printing, with its hand-rubbed pigment application, inherently produces soft transitions between color areas, making the medium a natural vehicle for a subject defined by gradual changes rather than sharp contrasts. The result is a print that asks the viewer to slow down and attend to subtle variation.
Woodblock print
c. 1832/38
Color woodblock print; oban
Yuki no Miyajima
1929
Color woodblock print; oban
1932
Woodblock print
Soft Steps was created by Sarah Brayer in Not set.
Soft Steps depicts snow scenes and abstract.
