Waterlily

The Japanese word ゆらぎ (yuragi) means a wavering, swaying, or slow fluctuation, and Takeda's title frames the print as a study of a waterlily on disturbed but unbroken water. Pond-surface compositions appear repeatedly across her thirty-year output — the placid skin of water rendered as a near-uniform aquatint field, broken only by floating pads, the upright stem of a single bloom, and the soft circular distortions of subsurface light. The technical interest in such a print lies in modulating very small tonal differences across a wide flat area: the aquatint must be evenly stopped out across multiple bites to keep the water reading as continuous, while the lily itself is reserved as cleaner paper or as more loosely bitten work. Chine-collé adds reflectivity that helps the water pass for water rather than gray ink. Edition sizes for this period are typically thirty impressions. Within Takeda's catalog, Waterlily belongs alongside her vines, garlic studies, and insect prints as a quiet observational subject pursued without anecdotal incident.