Good Omen

Good Omen enters the domain of augury and symbolic interpretation that runs through Japanese artistic tradition. The omen in question is not specified, allowing the print to function as a generalized field of auspicious possibility. Hasegawa's abstract treatment of religious subjects here likely draws on visual symbols associated with good fortune in Buddhist and Shinto iconography — forms that have been abstracted to the point of near-dissolution but retain their energetic resonance. The composition may employ the kind of asymmetric balance that Zen aesthetics associate with ma, the productive interval between things, giving the image a quality of poised expectation appropriate to the omen its title announces. Color choices would likely include the gold and vermilion tones associated with ceremonial contexts in Japanese visual culture, rendered through precise block registration on absorbent washi paper.