Butterfly

A butterfly rendered in Urushibara's refined color woodblock style, circa 1920. The butterfly is a subject with deep resonance in both European and Japanese visual culture: in the West, associated with transformation and transience; in Japan (kochō), linked to the Taoist tale of Zhuangzi and to images of feminine grace in bijin-ga. Urushibara's treatment almost certainly emphasizes the insect's structural beauty — the symmetry of wings, the fragility of antennae — with the precision that color woodblock printing uniquely enables.