Four Crows
- Medium:
- Woodblock print
- Format:
- Oban
- Publisher:
- Watanabe Shozaburo
- Edition:
- Published by Watanabe Shozaburo
Shotei produced a wide range of subjects throughout his career under publishers Watanabe and Daikokuya. Signed, sealed lifetime editions consistently outperform unsigned export-market copies.
Four crows are arranged across the composition in a formation that suggests both casual grouping and carefully considered spatial distribution. Shotei's study of these notoriously intelligent birds captures their characteristic combination of alert watchfulness and casual boldness — the postures of animals at home in human-dominated landscapes, neither wild nor domesticated. The crow's symbolic associations in Japanese culture are complex: sometimes a messenger of ill omen, sometimes the bird of the sun god Amaterasu, always a creature of unusual cunning.
Curated cross-cuts that include this print.
Four Crows was created by Takahashi Shotei (高橋松亭).
Four Crows was published by Watanabe Shozaburo.
Four Crows depicts birds & flowers and animals.
