The images are currently part of an on-going album on flickrꜛ. They will be available here soon.
The images are currently part of an on-going album on flickrꜛ. They will be available here soon.
Characters of the Korean Phonetic Script, Ven. Mun Suan, Ink on paper, Korea, dated 1989. Read more about this series below.
Writing and calligraphy (Korean: seoye) have occupied a central position in Korean art since the early adoption of the Chinese writing system (hanja)[^1] from the 1st century onward. Mastery of this script was traditionally associated with officials and scholars, for whom calligraphy was both an intellectual discipline and an artistic practice.
Note: While chinese characters are called hanzi (漢字) in Chinese, they are referred to as hanja (한자 / 漢字) in Korean and kanji (漢字) in Japanese.
From the 15th century, this landscape changed significantly with the introduction of the phonetic script hangeul, developed under the reign of King Sejong (r. 1418–1459). Its relative simplicity enabled broader access to literacy, including women and members of lower social strata such as the nobi (slave) class. The coexistence of hanja and hangeul introduced different visual rhythms and stroke structures into Korean writing culture, both traditionally executed with brush and ink.
Characters of the Korean Phonetic Script, Ven. Mun Suan, Ink on paper, Korea, dated 1989. The monk Mun Suan of Tongdosa Temple wrote vowels, consonants and the beginning of the alphabet of the Korean phonetic script Hangeul ‘In the early spring of the year 4322 after Dangun’, i.e. 1989, as can be seen from the inscription. The strokes are written with an ink-rich brush. The shaky-looking lines are intended to be reminiscent of historical writings (Kor. goche). The signature and two of the five seals are also written in Hangeul, the former with lively calligraphy, the latter repeating the syllables ‘Su’ and ‘An’ in a graphically sober manner. The seals vary in the engraving technique: in one seal, they are cut (ground red, character white); in the other, they are carved in relief (ground white, character red).
Today, hangeul is the dominant script in Korea, while hanja is used primarily for specific purposes such as academic texts or Chinese loanwords. Calligraphy in both scripts continues to be a respected art form, with contemporary artists exploring new styles and interpretations while maintaining a connection to traditional techniques (see, e.g., our previous post on the Chinese ink artist Jianfeng Pan)
The exhibition emphasized that calligraphic brushwork in Korea is not confined to writing alone. Painting employs the same tools and closely related stroke techniques, with inscriptions often forming an integral part of the image. Beyond paper and silk, calligraphic aesthetics also permeate handcrafted objects. Ceramics and bronzes carry painted, impressed, or incised decorations whose visual logic is derived from the modulation, tension, and movement of the brush line.
By juxtaposing contemporary calligraphic works with traditional and modern paintings, as well as ceramics and bronzes from the Goryeo period (918–1392), the exhibition traced this continuity across time and material. The Goryeo era, often regarded as a cultural high point in Korean history, provided historical anchors for understanding how calligraphic principles shaped form well beyond the written page.
Old Man, Chang Woosoung (1912-2005), Ink and colours on paper Korea, 1981. As the pupil of the famous modern Korean painter Kim Eun-ho (1892-1978), Chang was renowned for his more traditional figure paint-ing. The painting ‘Old Man’ is executed in fine delicate pastels and Chang took special care in painting the outlines with sketch-like brushstrokes. The long flute playfully disrupts the vertical inscription, in which old age is contemplated.
The One-Thousand-Year-Old Dragon-Pine of the Danho Temple, Yi Yeongbok (1955), Ink and colours on paper Korea, dated 2003. The inscription includes the name of the temple, the title of the painting and his studio-name ‘Pavilion of the whispering pine’ (kor. Cheongsonggan) in Chinese characters, while the date "mid-summer 2003" is written in Hangeul. Yi executes both with a fine brush in semi-cursive brush-strokes. The mighty pine consists of various texture-strokes applied on surfaces of ink washes. Yi used pointed strokes for the needles and ink-dots ranging from dark to light tones for the bark of the pine tree.
The River Rhine (Kor. 라인강, ra-in-kang), Jeon Myungok (b. 1954), Ink on paper, Korea, 2007. This calligraphic work was created during a performance celebrating the opening of the exhibition ‘Germany - Korea: The Smell of Indian Ink Preview’ on September 10th, 2007, in the Press and Information Office of the Federal Republic of Germany in Berlin. The three Hangeul syllables are boldly written with a thick brush on the surface of the paper, starting at the top left with ‘tra’, the first phonetic symbol of the river name. The brush is filled with ink, so that the strokes are thick and deeply black. The second syllable ‘Lin’ is smaller and placed in the upper right-hand corner. The syllable ‘okang’, and its last letter ‘Ong’ is written dynamically with a dry brush which barely touches the writing surface and imitates the swirling of water using the ‘Flying White’ (Kor. baekbi) technique. The seal at the bottom left is also written in Hangeul and states the name of the village Yubyeongri in Joellanam Province in Korea, probably the studio name of the artist.
The exhibition room also featured several outstanding examples of Korean ceramics and bronzes from the Goryeo period, demonstrating the high level of craftsmanship and artistic expression of Korean artisans during this era.
Ewer in the Shape of a Gourd, Stoneware with engraved decor under celadon glaze Korea, Goryeo Period (918-1392), 12th cent. The ewer in the shape of a gourd is particularly balanced, the cord-shaped handle and the spout, which has been restored with gold lacquer, are elegantly curved. Also the application of the engraved lotus flower sprays with their detailed lines as well as the bluish-green celadon glaze are of high quality.
Maebyeong Vase with Crane and Cloud Decor, Stoneware with engobe under celadon glaze, Korea, Goryeo Period (918-1392), 13th or 14th cent. The Maebyeong vase (plum-shaped vase) has a particularly slim, S-shaped profile. The decor of auspicious clouds and cranes is inlaid with white and black slip or engobe. The neck is embellished with a cloud-head pattern, the foot with a meander border.
Long-necked Bottle with Chrysanthemum Decor, Stoneware with engobe under a celadon glaze, Korea, Goryeo Period (918-1392), 13th cent. Vertical fields of superimposed white chrysanthemum flowers with black leaves decorate the pear-shaped body of the bottle. While a frieze of lotos leaves in-laid with white engobe emphasizes the foot of the bottle, black and white flame-like elements decorate the neck. Note, that the bottle seems to have been broken and had been repaired using the Japanese kintsugi technique, where the cracks are filled with gold lacquer.
Long necked Ewer, Stoneware with engobe under celadon glaze, Korea, Goryeo Period (918-1392), mid-12th cent. The shape of the ewer with its pear-shaped body, the C-shaped handle and the high, outwardly curved spout is reminiscent of Persian metalwork. The decoration shows ribbons and peony flowers in detailed and precise execution, whereby a rare inlay technique was used below the lip, in which not the motives but the background was cut and filled with engobe (Kor. yak-sanggam).
Buddhist Bell, Bronze, Korea, Joseon Period (1392-1910), 19th cent. The bell has an opposing dragon pair handle. Its body is decorated alternately with four Bodhisattva reliefs and four nine-fold humped flower-fields. Rings with a mantra in Sanskrit script surround the bodhisattvas’ halos. The decor as a whole is designed in simple shapes.
Also on display in one of the neighbouring areas: A Chinese altar set from the Qing dynasty, which allows a comparison of parallel artistic developments in China (well, in a broader temporal sense of course as both, the Ming dynasty lasted from 1368 to 1644, while the Goryeo and Joseon periods in Korea spanned from 918 to 1392 and from 1392 to 1910, respectively; so, it’s a large temporal window we are looking at here):
Five-piece altar set (wugong), enamels on copper, China, Qing dynasty, 19th century. Since the Ming dynasty (1368-1644), worshippers in Buddhist and Daoist temples have made offerings of scent, light and flowers to the gods. This is to ensure that their prayers are accepted. Incense is lit in the central vessel, flanked by a pair of candle-sticks and the flower vases on the outside. The vessel shapes were adopted from archaic ceremonial vessels, which were originally used for food and wine offerings to the ancestors, gods and spirits.
I think, The Line made visible how deeply calligraphy is embedded in Korean artistic traditions. Something, I wasn’t aware of before. Rather than treating writing, painting, and object design as separate domains, brushstroke seem to be interpreted as an interconnected visual language that transcends boundaries of the underlying medium. This holistic approach to brushwork and line quality seems to be a distinctive feature of Korean art, setting it apart from other East Asian traditions (while others, like Chinese and Japanese art, also share similar principles).
The flyer of the exhibition.
The exhibition is still running until autumn 2026. So, if you happen to be in Cologne, I can warmly recommend a visit.
Entrance into the exhibition ‘Ink Roamings. Contemporary works on paper by Jianfeng Pan’, 2014-2024. Museum für Ostasiatische Kunst Köln.
Pan’s artistic position is shaped by multiple trajectories. Trained in graphic design and formerly based in Shanghai, he has lived in Finland since 2016 in what he describes as self-exile. His work is deeply rooted in the historical arts of Chinese writing and painting, while at the same time absorbing visual impressions from Northern European landscapes, everyday culture, and contemporary graphic language. The resulting imagery oscillates between forceful, almost graffiti-like gestures and quieter, contemplative passages. Throughout, Pan understands ink not as a regional or historical medium, but as a global visual language capable of articulating social, philosophical, and existential questions.
A striking aspect of the exhibition is its emphasis on materiality. All mounting formats were conceived and produced by the artist specifically for this presentation. Classical hanging scrolls appear alongside experimental floating scrolls, wood-framed sheets, folding screens, handscrolls extending over thirteen meters, and compact fanfold books displayed in vitrines.
This focus draws attention not only to the images themselves but to their physical support structures: brush, ink, paper, and mounting. The exhibition thus foregrounds the conditions of image production and reception, situating Pan’s work firmly within the material logic of Chinese brush-and-ink traditions while allowing for contemporary experimentation.
A central work at the entrance of the exhibition is Self-Portrait (2025), created during a live action writing performance at the exhibition opening. The larger-than-life human figure was executed using the three elementary media of traditional Chinese literati art: brush, ink, and paper. Pan worked with a one-meter-long Chinese brush made of horsetail hair, approximately 20 liters of liquid ink, and ten assembled sheets of xuan paper.
Self-Portrait 2025, Chinese ink on xuan-paper, 10 assembled sheets, Total dimensions ca. 390 x 350 cm. From the exhibition ‘Ink Roamings. Contemporary works on paper by Jianfeng Pan’, 2014-2024. Museum für Ostasiatische Kunst Köln.
Although the term “self-portrait” suggests a pictorial genre, the work is grounded neither in representation nor in painterly modeling. Instead, its technique and composition are rooted in Chinese calligraphy (shufa), the art of writing from which ink painting historically emerged. Pan’s brushstrokes are placed with force and in rapid, decisive sequences, emphasizing movement and bodily presence rather than likeness.
Video installation showing Jianfeng Pan’s Live Action Writing Performance creating Self-Portrait 2025 at the exhibition opening.
In the classical tradition, shufa is understood not as “beautiful writing,” but as a disciplined method of writing cultivated by scholar-artists (wenren), based on the unity of physical gesture and inner disposition. The brush functions as an organic extension of the body. Pan explicitly adopts this conception in his performative practice, describing the act of writing as a process of becoming part of the image itself. His statement “My body is the best brush” encapsulates this position. The Self-Portrait thus operates as a contemporary homage to the classical ideal of the unison of hand and heart, translated into a public, time-based action.
‘Self-Portrait’ hanging in the entrance area of the exhibition.
The exhibition was organized into three thematic rooms, each exploring different facets of Pan’s ink practice.
Exhibition Room II: Inversive Ink.
The first exhibition space, Roaming Ink, was dominated by large-scale works and addresses the Daoist concept of xiaoyao you, carefree roaming beyond fixed boundaries, as described in the Zhuangzi. Pan’s key work Northern Ocean refers to the mythical transformation of a primordial fish into a giant bird, a figure for radical change and boundless movement.
This Daoist imagery is juxtaposed with Ragnarök, whose title references Scandinavian mythology. Here, Pan introduces Chinese blue mineral pigment into the ink composition, linking cosmological ideas from different cultural traditions. Rather than illustrating specific narratives, these works explore notions of origin, transformation, and indeterminate substance. The philosophical concept of the All-Encompassing Brushstroke (yihua), formulated by the Qing-dynasty painter Shitao, provides an underlying framework: a single, primordial stroke that simultaneously contains and differentiates the cosmos.
Farewell to My Father, 2016-2021, Chinese ink, xuan-paper, 11 assembled sheets, total dimensions 180 x 1045 cm. Farewell to My Father is a dialogue between Jianfeng Pan and his father, who passed away in 2016. The opus stretches spatially over a more than ten-meter-long paper surface, temporally over a more than five-year-long creation process. In his farewell, Pan chooses the language of the calligraphic brush, the technical skills of which he learned from his father Zhishan Pan (1946-2016) as a child. Originally from Ruian in Zhejiang Province, his father was o dedicated and respected calligrapher of his time. In old age, he lost the ability to write by hand and became known for his ink art written and painted with his toes. Jianfeng Pan’s ‘Farewell’ poses the question whether son and father are more closely connected to, or more separated from one another after death.
Northern Ocean, 2023, Chinese ink, xuan-paper, 3 mounted hanging scrolls, each scroll 230 x 71 cm. The title ‘Northern Ocean’ refers to the Daoist classic Zhuangzi, in which the abyssal ‘Northern Sea’ - or ‘Northern Darkness’ - is introduced as a mythical shadowy place of incomprehensible dimension and capacity. The first book chapter, ‘Carefree Roaming Afar’ (Xiaoyao you), tells of mind travel and mystical exploration of the world beyond known boundaries. And indeed, the longer one looks and lets one’s own gaze wander, the more one discovers in Pan’s deep-black sea: eyes, mouths, and faces, small and large creatures reminiscent of jellyfish and amphibians, platypuses and reptiles. A dragon coils itself at the center like a vortex. The literary topos of ‘carefree roaming’ permeates the art and cultural history of East Asia up to the present day, as Pan’s visual translation exemplifies.
Ragnarök, 2024, Chinese ink, Chinese mineral color, xuan-paper, 3 mounted hanging scrolls, each scroll 370 x 100 cm. Pan envisions the mythology of Scandinavia. The saga Ragnarök, whose Old Norse name literally means ‘Fate of the Gods’, tells of the catastrophic end of the world after the gods lose their battle against demons and giants. The killing of the God of Light at the beginning of the saga heralds the end of the world with a merciless ‘Fimbulwinter’ (‘Mighty Winter’) lasting three years. The earth dies down in darkness, and is finally reborn. Using ink in combination with Chinese mineral color, Pan captures what he calls the ‘Finnish Blue Moment’: the culmination point shortly before the onset of winter and entry into the dark season; a retreat inwards and stoic waiting for the next spring.
Cartoon ‘Early Spring’, 2017, Chinese ink, xuan-paper, mounted hanging scroll, 270 x 180 cm. The work pays tribute to the great tradition of Chinese landscape painting, which flourished during the Northern Song Dynasty (960-1279) and shaped the iconic format of the monumental hanging scroll. The classical pictorial genre known as, literally, ‘mountain-water-painting’ (shanshuihua), aims at a microcosmic representation of the macrocosmic world order: a universe in miniature, to be wandered through by the viewer before their mind’s eye. Compositionally, the path leads through the painted nature landscape beginning in the densely vegetated foreground in the lower part of the picture, across mist-shrouded streams in the middle ground at the picture center, high up to the mountain peaks, which dissolve into the clouds and open sky in the upper part of the picture. Pan’s work is based on the masterpiece Early Spring of 1072 by the court pointer Guo Xi. In keeping with the maxim ‘study the old to create the new’ (xue gu chuang xin), the vibrant ink lines of Pan’s cartoon-like interpretation awaken the Song-dynasty original to new life.
Unregistered Calligraphy, 2024, ‘Paper-on-Ink’, Chinese ink, xuan-paper, 5 mounted hanging scrolls with 3 sheets each, each scroll 350 x 60 cm. The continuous reversal and balancing of opposite poles are a trademark of Pan’s ink art: between written and unwritten paper surface, straight and curved brushstrokes, greyish-pale and deep-black ink tones, coarse and fine lines. Pan’s serially created works visualize these dynamic fields of tension particularly vividly. The 15 selected works from the Unregistered Calligraphy series are specially mounted and installed by him in ‘floating’ technique for the exhibition. Together, the five hanging scrolls, each integrating three sheets, can be read like a calligraphic artwork - from top to bottom, and right to left. The ink renderings thus combined to form a complete ‘text’ could stand for 15 imaginary written characters. Pan deliberately strips his characters of any semantic content. Rather, the story is told through the narrative lines of the brushstrokes, technically executed in both pattern-book and playful manner, becoming carriers of meaning themselves. Their graphic forms subtly evoke the natural world, from gnarled roots and barren mountains, to snow-covered branches, bubbling springs, and delicately blooming buds.
The second space, Inversive Ink, focused on Pan’s technical experiments with inversion and duality. Drawing on long-standing East Asian traditions that emphasize emptiness as an active compositional element, Pan develops a method he describes as “paper on ink”.
In this process, water is applied to the front of the paper, while diluted ink is brushed onto the reverse. The absorbent xuan paper mediates between both, producing gradients and textures that escape full control. The conventional hierarchy of ink acting upon passive paper is thus reversed. Paper becomes an active participant through its capacity to absorb, resist, and transform. Pan’s self-description as a “background painter” reflects this inversion, aligning the method with Daoist notions of wuwei, non-action as productive force.
Your Problem Is Mine, 2024, ‘Paper-on-Ink’, Chinese ink, Chinese mineral color, xuan-paper, 3 mounted hanging scrolls, each scroll 370 x 74 cm. The work mounted in the form of three hanging scrolls and enigmatically titled ‘Your Problem is Mine,’ can, like Lost and Found, be presented in vertical or horizontal format. Shown here is the horizontal viewing perspective. Pan’s motif reminiscent of a sharp-edged, cavitous rock structure is inspired by the handed-down story of Bodhidharma (5th/ 6th c.): the legendary founder of Chan, respectively Zen Buddhism, who traveled from India to China and is said to have meditated in front of a cave wall for nine years, even after his arms, legs, and eyelids had fallen off Iconographically, the portrait of the master sitting before the stone wall in contemplation is widespread throughout East Asia. Pan’s work induces a reversal of perspective: instead of the typical depiction of Bodhidharma meditating, we ourselves become the sitter in the cave, gazing straight at the wall before us, self-reflexively.
Double Black Happiness, 2023, ‘Paper-on-Ink’, Chinese ink, xuan-paper, 2 mounted hanging scrolls, each scroll 215 x 71 cm. The double format of two coupled hanging scrolls has special cultural historical significance in China. As large-size carriers of calligraphic inscriptions transporting auspicious messages, these are hung together on festive occasions such as New Year or weddings. In Pans pair of hanging scrolls, likewise, the abstract white masses that seem to float freely in deep-black space belong together and form two parts of a whole. Astronomically, the structure visually evokes the remains of a superstar cluster in outer space; anatomically, perhaps an organic heart or even pair of hearts. In the particular discourse of Chinese ink art, the aspects of doubling and multi-plication, mirroring and repetition conjure the philosophically coined concept of the ‘All-Encompassing Brushstroke’ (yihua): the primordial brushstroke that still contains the entire cosmos in itself and forms the source of all subsequent brushstrokes. Technically, the title ‘Double Black Happiness’ may allude to Pan’s inversive ink technique - the twofold processing of the paper surface, first of its backside, then frontside.
Hanging Inspirations, 2021, Chinese ink, xuan-paper, 3 mounted hanging scrolls, each scroll 130 x 37 cm. In minimalist and flawless manner, Pan’s Hanging Inspirations fuse the elementary graphic forms of the centrally placed circle and rectangle that frames the image. Forming a visual contrast surface, they highlight emptiness as a constitutive part of the visual composition, condensing what is known in ink discourse as the ‘dialectical conversation between black and white’! The centered iconic round figure evokes the hand-drawn ‘Circle of Enlightenment’ (Jap. Enso), which was established in the calligraphic practice of Zen-Buddhist monks as an iconographic tradition.
Midsummer 2023 I, ‘Paper-on-Ink’, Chinese ink, Chinese mineral color, xuan-paper, wood, 6-panel standing screen, total dimensions 139 x 420 cm. The seasons, and the anticipation of seasonal transitions are recurring motifs in Pan’s work. While Ragnarök, for example, suggests anxiety about the approaching winter, Cartoon ‘Early Spring’ expresses the delights of renewal in spring. Pan’s extensive series Midsummer, then, sings an ode to the summertime, which in Scandinavia reaches its climax and is celebrated lusciously on occasion of the summer solstice, the longest day of the year around the end of June. The midsummer roses depicted on the folding screens are based on the plants in Pan’s own garden. Since moving into his house in the Finnish Porvoo in 2016, he paints the bushes of the Finnish wild rose, also known as Rosa pimpinellifolia Flora Plena, every year. As Pan notes, their usual two-week blooming period is shortening from year to year, which he ascribes to climate change. By painting the flowers, Pan seeks to document their disappearance in nature.
Unlimited, 2018-2020, Chinese ink, Chinese mineral colors, xuan-paper, cardboard, 20 assembled sheets mounted as a fanfold-book, total dimensions 45 × 1360 cm. Unlimited is inspired by what Pan calls the paradise village surroundings of his Finnish hometown, in an attempt to capture the, to him seemingly unreal pink of the early morning sky seen in the North in spring-time. All the same, the landscape remains essentially fictive; it springs from Pan’s imagination and does not represent any real existing natural setting. The ghostly creatures embedded in the scenery could be understood as haunting warning spirits that are meant to remind us of life and death in the everyday world - and the sometimes dangerous dream world in between. As the artist himself points out, his fanfold-book contains numerous hidden graphic elements. And as is usual in the Chinese pictorial tradition of narrative handscrolls, its stories unfold only when spread out and observed slowly.
The final exhibition space, Mindful Ink, presented smaller works created during Pan’s travels: sketches, notes, caricatures, and short textual pieces. These works oscillate between humor, satire, and unease. Cartoon-like rabbits coexist with distorted human figures; playful surfaces give way to more ambiguous undertones upon closer inspection.
This room also integrates works in other media, including seal art, woodblock printing, ceramics, and graphic design. Together, they document Pan’s broader practice and his concept of “Mindful Ink”, which culminates in his internationally conducted One Breath workshops. The long-running series My Facebook, showed in the museum foyer, framed the exhibition spatially and thematically, reflecting on social media, communication, and contemporary forms of self-projection.
Self-Portrait, 2016, Chinese ink, xuan-paper, framed sheet 30 x 23 cm. The work from 2016 is only one among the many examples of Pan’s ‘Self-Portrait’ - the youngest one being the monumental work created in a live performance at the opening of this exhibition. The original ink sketch of the by now ubiquitous, logo-like image harks back to 2005. As Pan believes, the repetitive creation of the image as a form of ‘self-observation’ allows him to ‘get closer to who | am and really want to become’. The seal impression seen in the work is a glyphed transformation of the two Chinese characters jian (‘to see’) and feng (‘wind’), signifying the childhood name given to Pan by his father.
Northern Ocean, 2023’Paper-on-Ink’, Chinese ink, Chinese mineral color, xuan-paper, 3 framed sheets, each sheet 79 x 151 cm. The Northern Ocean series, created in connection with the eponymous large-format work shown in the first exhibition space, is inspired by Pan’s travels into the wild nature of Northern Scandinavia. For him, the travels bring to mind not only the free-spirited text ‘Carefree Roaming Afor’ from the Daoist classic Zhuangzi, but also the limitations of the hypertechnological age that shapes our existence today. Pan describes the creation of the series as a healing process: ‘I start by splashing water on the xuan-paper, then / turn the sheet over and work the backside with diluted, dark-grey ink. All I have to do then is continue painting the backside or the negative areas on the paper’s frontside. I so finally free myself from the self-image of the picture maker’ and happily become a ‘background painter’.
Self-Evolution, 2006, Blueish-white-glazed Jingdezhen Porcelain, 5 figurines, 12-15 x 12-15 cm. For Pan, clay and ink are closely related as ‘flowing, never fully graspable materials’. The plastic modeled images are created in 2006 during his study of porcelain production in Jingdezhen. The studies give him the opportunity to gain a deeper understanding of the material of the ink medium and how to treat it. ‘The nature of the clay should never be hurt’. This first and most important lesson that Par learns with regard te ceramic production con, in his view be essentially transferred te the nature of ink and production of ink art.
Ink Meditations, 2014, Chinese ink, xuan-paper, 9 mounted album leaves, each leaf 35 x 35 cm.For Pan, 2014 was marked by intensive travels and a longer sojourn in Germany, particularly in the Hanseatic city of Hamburg. Pan describes the extensively created work series Ink Meditations, of which a small selection is shown, as a ‘visual diary’. It indicates his gradual departure from graphic design and decisive turning towards ink art. In terms of both motif and technique, Pan’s snapshot-like ink sketches can be contemplated as exercises in mindfulness. The brushstrokes are applied with deliberation and concentration, likewise effortlessly and playfully. No stroke is redundant, just as every left-out area of the picture plane is filled with meaning. Pan’s ‘ink meditations’ condense what is also known in the Chinese literati tradition as the esteemed art of so-called ‘ink play’ (moxi).
My Hundred Longevities (1999), 1999, Chinese seal paste, xuan-paper, Original printed folding album 50 x 600 cm. The work carries 208 individually carved and printed graphic ciphers, evenly distributed in vertical rows. What appears upon first glance to be classical Chinese text, is in fact a corpus of ciphers containing letters from the Latin alphabet as well as globally known icons - including the communist hammer and sickle, dollar and euro symbols, paragraph and copyright signs, various Unicode characters, acronyms, western punctuation marks. Numerous ciphers represent variant renderings of the Chinese written character shou, ‘longevity’: some are based on historical types of ancient seal script, others on Pan’s pictographic imagination. Glyphs consisting entirely of horizontal lines may reference the divinatory 64 Hexagrams documented in the early Chinese Book of Changes (Yijing). My Hundred Longevities is created during Pan’s MA studies in Visual Communication at the Birmingham Institute of Art and De-sign, in an attempt to design a ‘universal language’. It combines western letterpress printing with the traditional Chinese folding-album format and makes use of cinnabar-based seal paste instead of ink.
My Hundred Longevities (2003), 2003, Fluorescent color, xuan-paper, silkscreen print 60 x 90 cm. After graduating from the China Academy of Art, Hangzhou, with an MA in Visual Communication in 1999, Pan completes a second MA degree at the University of Central England and Birmingham Institute of Art and Design. In 2001, he embarks on his career as graphic designer in Shanghai. Founded in his experimental research undertaken abroad, Pan’s focus on interactions between Chinese calligraphy and western typography prevails. His 2003 silkscreen poster print My Hundred Longevities, rendered in fluorescent pink, is a reproduction of the original folding album from 1999. The artist’s deep mindful connection with the three elementary materials of traditional Chinese calligraphy and painting - brush, ink, and paper - is shaped by his personal biography: from studying under the renowned Hangzhou-based modernist calligrapher Wong Dongling in young years; to realizing commissioned works for the Finnish Pavilion at the World Expo Shanghai 2010, Astana 2017, and Dubai 2021; to his dedicated work today as an intercultural agent of contemporary graphic ink art.
Rabbit Hole, 2023-2025, Chinese ink, Chinese mineral color, xuan-paper, 8 framed album leaves, each leaf 36 x 25 / 25 x 36 / 79 x 53 cm. The series is created in 2023, the Chinese lunar Hare Year. It is inspired by the 1977 novel The Year of the Hare by the Finnish author Arto Paasilinna. Pan recognizes himself in its story: the protagonist, a work-weary media-person, encounters an injured rabbit as a result of a car accident and embarks on a life-changing - in Pan’s words - ‘journey of awakening’. In the form of self-carved woodblock-printing plates, Pan reproduces the image in infinite variations, each print bearing new visual aspects. Polychrome ink works implemented in his ‘paper-on-ink’ method complete the series and mirror its title - ‘Rabbit Hole’ It is not clear whether Pan’s rabbits disappear into the hole, or are born from it into the world. A brush-sketched ink rabbit is created in 2025 on occasion of the exhibition.
Unfinished Conversation, 2008-2022, Chinese ink, letter paper, 8 loose sheets, each sheet 29 x 21 cm. Pan’s Unfinished Conversation comprises a collection of around 150 research papers, of which a small selection is shown: graphic diagrams and mindmaps, exercises on Chinese script types and old masters’ styles, essayistic notes, introspective caricatures. They document Pan’s thoughtful intercultural and philosophical dealing with language and semiotics as well as the relationship between humans, nature, and art; commenting, for example, on the work of Ferdinand de Saussure, Rudolf Steiner, Yanagi Soetsu, and Jacques Derrida. As a brush-and-ink artist, Pan is fully aware of the remarkable phenomenon of the Chinese written language: here, the fascination with calligraphy lies in the fact that the visual form of the written character itself becomes meaningful, beyond its semantic value. Pan’s Unfinished Conversation, curiously rendered on letter paper he inherited from the owner of a Chinese restaurant in Turku, conveys the artist’s mindful multiverse in the form of his daily ‘food for thought’.
‘Facebook’ as seen through one of the windows of the museum.
My Facebook (2014-), Chinese ink, Chinese mineral color, xuan-paper, 2 mounted hanging scrolls, each scroll 180 x 97 cm. The two large-format works from Jianfeng Pan’s ongoing series My Facebook welcome and bid farewell to visitors to the special exhibition Tuschewanderungen (Ink Wanderings). Created in 2014, the same year the series began, they reflect Pan’s intensive travels, including to Germany. Mosaic-like, the large-scale compositions show hundreds of human faces: collective portraits of contemporary society, captured in different locations around the globe. Like personal entries in a diary, they document Pan’s perception of the individuals and living environments he encounters on his travels. He compares his miniature portraits to fingerprints. Viewed from a distance, they form a homogeneous mass, but on closer inspection, each face is unique, each profile different. With a few strokes of ink, Pan draws countless faces; some seem familiar, others strange.
Before I visited the exhibition, I did not know anything about Jianfeng Pan’s work. The show surprised me positively in many ways. First of all, I appreciated the clear curatorial concept that structured the exhibition into three thematic rooms, each with a distinct focus yet interconnected through Pan’s artistic practice. The spatial arrangement allowed for a gradual immersion into Pan’s world of ink art, from the grand landscapes to the intimate sketches.
Secondly, I was impressed by the diversity of techniques and formats employed by Pan. From large-scale fanfold books to small album leaves, from monochrome ink washes to vibrant mineral colors, Pan is a versatile artist who masters various forms of expression within the ink medium. The creativity displayed in his works is truly remarkable.
But what I liked most was that his art is rooted in Chinese writing and painting traditions. Especially by combining philosophical reference, experimentation, and contemporary elements, Pan creates a unique visual language that resonates with both Eastern and Western audiences I could imagine. His works invite contemplation and reflection, but also mind-trips into fantastical worlds.
Overall, Tuschewanderungen was a captivating exhibition that offered a comprehensive overview of Jianfeng Pan’s artistic journey and his contributions to contemporary ink art. It was a pleasure to explore his works and gain insights into his creative process. I left the museum feeling inspired and eager to explore more modern approaches to traditional art forms.
Tanaka Ryōhei, ‘From Line to Landscape’, Museum für ostasiatische Kunst Köln, Dec 2024.
Tanaka is well known for his meticulous etchings of rural Japan, particularly snow-covered landscapes and traditional architecture. The exhibition presented over 100 works, including early experiments, mature pieces, and late works, allowing viewers to trace the evolution of his technique and thematic focus.
Tanaka Ryōhei, from the exhibition ‘From Line to Landscape’ at the Museum für ostasiatische Kunst Köln, Dec 2024.
Tanaka Ryōhei (1933–2019) was a Japanese printmaker who lived and worked in Takatsuki, near Kyoto. Unlike many of his contemporaries, Tanaka began his artistic career relatively late. In 1963, he studied etching under Furuno Yoshio, and one year later he joined the Kyoto Etchers’ Group, marking his formal entry into printmaking.
Tanaka Ryōhei, Abandoned House of Tokashima, from the exhibition ‘From Line to Landscape’ at the Museum für ostasiatische Kunst Köln, Dec 2024. Etching and aquatint 1993. Ryōher’s youth was partly spent in the countryside of his grandfather of which the scenery remained embedded in him throughout his life. His repeated depictions of abandoned farmhouses may stem from a certain sadness of seeing these sustainable organic structures disappear during his own lifetime. This etching of an abandoned and dilapidated farmhouse is particularly poignant as it gives the impression that a swarm of insects has infested the remains of the thatched roof.
Onigawara. These traditional Japanese onigawara (roof tiles with demon faces) were a significant source of inspiration for Tanaka Ryōhei. In Japanese culture, onigawara serve to protect buildings by warding off evil spirits and keeping misfortune at bay. The expressive forms and protective symbolism of these tiles fascinated Tanaka, who incorporates elements of this heritage into his art.
Tanaka devoted himself almost exclusively to etching and related intaglio techniques. Over the course of his career, he produced more than 770 etchings, typically printed in small editions ranging from 50 to 150 impressions. After completion, he deliberately destroyed the copper plates to prevent further prints from being made.
The vast majority of his works are monochrome, with occasional use of aquatint or restrained color accents. Tanaka continued working well into old age; his final print was completed in 2013.
Tanaka Ryōhei, Autumn Temple, from the exhibition ‘From Line to Landscape’ at the Museum für ostasiatische Kunst Köln, Dec 2024. Etching and aquatint, 2008. Apart from the black key-plate, the artist used a second plate for the colours which he had to wipe in the a la poupee technique. This technique entails inking the same plate with various coloured inks before wiping the excess ink off. In this way one can add two or more colours to the image by using just the one colour plate. Tanaka was well used to this method and cleverly separated the three colour sections bitten on the second plate with enough space in between to make the wiping less difficult. In between the foliage of the maple tree he carefully etched the rooftiles in small sections to make them visible and create space between tree and roof. The printing of an edition of 100 plus 10 artists proofs would have been a very time consuming task. Having now reached the age of seventy five, he would have been able to perhaps print only ten of this etchings in one day.
Etching has a long history in Europe but a comparatively fragile one in Japan. Early experiments by Shiba Kōkan in the late 18th century remained isolated. During the Edo period, copperplate techniques were associated with rangaku, “Dutch learning”, and later fell under political suspicion. When Western printmaking techniques re-entered Japan in the Meiji period, they were largely adopted for technical reproduction rather than artistic exploration.
Even in the early 20th century, etching remained marginal. Woodblock printmaking dominated both tradition and reform, from shin hanga to sōsaku hanga. Etching only began to gain broader recognition after World War II, particularly through international exhibitions and institutions such as the College Women’s Association of Japan print shows.
What I learned from the exhibition, is, that against this background, Tanaka Ryōhei’s career appears not as a continuation of an established lineage as it is the case for many Japanese printmakers, but as a deliberate and sustained commitment to a medium that had no secure place in Japanese art.
Tanaka worked almost exclusively with intaglio techniques, primarily line etching and aquatint, supplemented by drypoint, roulette, sugar-lift, scraping, and burnishing. Intaglio printmaking involves incising an image into a metal plate, inking the recessed lines, wiping the surface clean, and pressing damp paper onto the plate under high pressure to transfer the inked image.
Tanaka Ryōhei, Tools for etching, from the exhibition ‘From Line to Landscape’ at the Museum für ostasiatische Kunst Köln, Dec 2024
The exhibition emphasized how controlled and cumulative his process was. He worked on a single plate at a time, drawing directly into the ground, biting repeatedly, stopping out hundreds of lines, and relying on experience rather than mechanical timing.
Tanaka Ryōhei, Preliminary sketches and preliminary studies, from the exhibition ‘From Line to Landscape’ at the Museum für ostasiatische Kunst Köln, Dec 2024
What distinguishes his work is not virtuosity for its own sake, but the structural use of line. Lines do not describe surfaces; they build them. Roofs, walls, trees, and snowfields emerge from dense cross-hatching, shallow bites, and carefully calibrated plate tone. Large areas of the plate are often left untouched, allowing the white of the paper to function as snow, mist, or light. In many works, more than half the image is unetched.
Tanaka Ryōhei, Barn and House No. 3, from the exhibition ‘From Line to Landscape’ at the Museum für ostasiatische Kunst Köln, Dec 2024. Etching and aquatint, 1993. Tanaka created this impressive work shortly before he underwent long-postponed heart surgery. During his convalescence he produced a number of smaller etchings. The edition of the present work was printed in the following year after the artist had fully recovered. The richly varied thatch, particularly in the roof of the smaller building, is achieved by an extreme density of deeply etched lines. When using such a technique the artist has to take great care that the individual lines do not get bitten too deeply. This could affect the tiny copper ridges that define each line and hold the ink. A sideways breakthrough of these minute ridges would create a flat section which will no longer hold the ink and print as blank instead of the desired hues of black.
Color appears sparingly and late. Even then, it rarely functions decoratively. Color plates are used to deepen atmosphere, weight, or temperature, while the core image remains anchored in monochrome structure. Several works appear polychrome at first glance, yet are printed from a single plate through subtle control of ink density and biting depth.
Tanaka Ryōhei, The Main Hall of Tō-ji, from the exhibition ‘From Line to Landscape’ at the Museum für ostasiatische Kunst Köln, Dec 2024. Etching and aquatint, 1999. The main hall of the Tō-ji temple is one of many UNESCO world heritage monuments in Kyoto. The present main hall was rebuilt in the late 15th century, after the original building, dating from the late 800s, was destroyed by fire. Tanaka shows the building as if seen through a telephoto lens. The dramatically shortened view is emphasized by the repoussoir of the trees on either side and the big stone lantern in the foreground. The etching was done on two plates: the black key plate and a plate with three sections of aquatinted areas that were inked a la poupee with ochre, green and light-red.
Across the decades, Tanaka repeatedly returned to elevated or compressed viewpoints. Roofs are seen from above, walls from oblique angles, trees from below. Perspective is often flattened or deliberately distorted. Vertical lines frequently refuse to converge, producing images that oscillate between realism and abstraction.
Tanaka Ryōhei, Roofs Along Kurama Road, from the exhibition ‘From Line to Landscape’ at the Museum für ostasiatische Kunst Köln, Dec 2024. Etching and aquatint, 1994. This cropped and shortened view of the roofs with the repoussoir of a tree trunk is similar to Mountain Village of 1992. A new element in this work is the slightly parabolic view and the contrast between the sharply etched grasses and leaves in the foreground and the soft density of the pine forest on the opposite slope.
This approach aligns Tanaka less with Western landscape traditions than with Japanese painting practices, particularly nihonga and ink painting, where space is constructed through rhythm, cropping, and implication rather than optical coherence. Several works explicitly echo scroll painting, both in their vertical formats and in their telephoto-like compression of space.
At the same time, Tanaka’s images are unmistakably modern. The repeated focus on disappearing rural architecture, abandoned farmhouses, and altered landscapes registers social change without illustration or commentary. Snow becomes not only a motif, but a structural device: A way of erasing, isolating, and quieting the image.
Tanaka Ryōhei, Snow and Thatched Roof, from the exhibition ‘From Line to Landscape’ at the Museum für ostasiatische Kunst Köln, Dec 2024. Etching and aquatint, 1993. Even a well-trained eye could easily mistake this print for a multi plate (of a multi plate color etching), which it technically is not. The lineetched roof and the aquatinted sky were etched into - and printed off - the same plate. The drawn lines were etched much deeper than the aquatinted areas. Tanaka carefully mixed black and indigo ink so that the deeply etched lines still show as almost black: the blueish hue, on the other hand, is the result of the thin layer of ink remaining in the rather shallowly bitten aquatint section of the sky. This gives the impression that two plates, one black and one indigo, were used. The result is a rare technical feat, one that Tanaka was able to repeat only once more in his Snow Bird of 2008.
One of the most striking aspects of Tanaka Ryōhei’s work is its consistency. Over more than fifty years, he refined a narrow set of subjects, formats, and techniques rather than expanding them. Certain plate sizes recur hundreds of times. Certain motifs reappear with incremental variation. This restraint is not limitation, but method.
Tanaka Ryōhei, Barn and House No. 1, from the exhibition ‘From Line to Landscape’ at the Museum für ostasiatische Kunst Köln, Dec 2024. Etching and aquatint 1989. This etching on a larger scale would become the first of a number of works with the same title. Whereas the later works of a similar subject with the same title all show a thatched main house and a equally thatched smaller structure, Tanaka purposefully and carefully creates the contrast of his famous old fashioned farmhouses juxtaposed to a small modern motor venicle such as the Suzuki and Honda small trucks often used by the local farmers to this day.
Seen as a whole, the work demonstrates how an artist can build extraordinary expressive range from a deliberately restricted vocabulary. The exhibition made clear that Tanaka’s achievement lies not in stylistic innovation, but in the cumulative precision of his practice.
Here are some further photos I took at the exhibition in order to give you a better impression of Tanaka Ryōhei’s work. The caption texts are taken from the accompanying booklet to the exhibition.
Tanaka Ryōhei, Pagoda, from the exhibition ‘From Line to Landscape’ at the Museum für ostasiatische Kunst Köln, Dec 2024. Etching and aquatint, 1966. This pagoda is located in the grounds of Toji temple in Kyoto. The slightly off-center view adds a certain lightness to the elegance of the tower. Note the thinly etched lines of the flying eaves tiles of the three upper stories, which give the illusion of distance as well as the impression of looking up to an overcast sky.
Tanaka Ryōhei, Winter Orchard No. 1, from the exhibition ‘From Line to Landscape’ at the Museum für ostasiatische Kunst Köln, Dec 2024.Color etching, etching, aquatinta and sugar-lift aquatint, 1967. This is the third etching in the relatively small oeuvre of Tanaka’s multi-plate color prints, and an experimental one. The composition has a some-what abstract foreground, and a hillside orchard divided by a flight of steps leading to a shed on the hilltop. The bare branches of the fruit trees are graphic and detailed, yet the entire composition is abstract. This elevated view of an orchard on a hillside reminds us of a work from 1960, by nihonga painter Iwahashi Fien (1903-1999) In early-1960s Japan, a more subtle graphically abstract realism was gaining ground after the waves of raw and experimental Western-style abstraction.
Tanaka Ryōhei, Wooden Lattice No. 2, from the exhibition ‘From Line to Landscape’ at the Museum für ostasiatische Kunst Köln, Dec 2024. Etching and aquatint, 1972. A row of townhouses and warehouses as seen from the opposite side of the street through a kōshi, the traditional wooden lattice screen which is indispensable to Japanese architecture. The sense of distance between the kōshi, which is partly blocking our view, and the houses opposite is achieved by the strongly converging lines of the tiled roofs. The location is probably a street in Kyoto’s Nishijin district, which is famous for its traditional machiya (townhouses). The contrast between the dark bold structure in the foreground and the buildings, rendered in a lighter manner, beyond, gives the impression of looking out from the inside. Like many other Japanese traditional architectural features, kōshi have often been used as pictorial ploys.
Tanaka Ryōhei, Jingo-ji, from the exhibition ‘From Line to Landscape’ at the Museum für ostasiatische Kunst Köln, Dec 2024. Etching und roulette, 1972. After the success of his unconventional Tree top branches at Sanzenin Tanaka continued to explore new angles based on photographic viewpoints. He usually made the first sketches on the spot, looking for new challenges for the composition, but instantly determining the angle of view. Jingo-ji forces the viewer to focus on the stone steps leading up to the temple gate. The image is executed in pure hardground line etching with roulette nuances for the stone.
Enlarged version of “Gansen-ji” at one of the exhibition walls.
Tanaka Ryōhei, Gansen-ji, from the exhibition ‘From Line to Landscape’ at the Museum für ostasiatische Kunst Köln, Dec 2024. Etching, 1980. Tanaka chose the subject of the three-storied pagoda of Gansen-ji, with its elegantly shaped roofs and lush surroundings after eight years of predominantly depicting secular rural architecture. It was fourteen years since Pagoda of 1966. The Gansen-ji pagoda was built in 1442 on the eastern slopes of the town of Kizugawa in Kyoto prefecture. Its structure is so slender that the three roofs seem to float among the trees without any support from a tower.
Tanaka Ryōhei, Big White Tree, from the exhibition ‘From Line to Landscape’ at the Museum für ostasiatische Kunst Köln, Dec 2024. Etching and aquatint, 1982. This work seems to be a ‘negative’ version of an etching with exactly the same dimensions Tanaka made eleven years earlier entitled Spring is Near. The fanning out of what appears to be brightly lit branches behind the roof as opposed to the more or less vertical lines of the branches in the earlier print show the artist’s constant search for innovation and artistic expression. This work needs to be scrutinized from up close. It is mesmerizing how Tanaka managed to block out the ever thinner growing lines of the branches with the syrupy block-out varnish, thereby protecting them from the aggressive deep biting of the mordant, which deep biting would create the solid black night sky. The thinnest branches are not even a fraction of a millimetre wide yet the nitric acid did not bite ‘underneath’ these very fine lines. A masterly feat of the use of stop-out varnish.
Tanaka Ryōhei, Birds in Flight, from the exhibition ‘From Line to Landscape’ at the Museum für ostasiatische Kunst Köln, Dec 2024. Etching, 1982. Turning away from the immobility of his favorite subjects, Tanaka at times sought to create a sense of movement in his etchings. Sometimes he achieved this by suggesting wind and the elements, either with etched lines or with aquatint, sometimes with the suggestion of falling snow. In a number of works from 1982, he added flying birds. Birds in Flight is an excellent example of this group. The birds beyond the roof and the trees provide a sense of space and movement.
Tanaka Ryōhei, Big Tree No. 1 (detail), from the exhibition ‘From Line to Landscape’ at the Museum für ostasiatische Kunst Köln, Dec 2024. Etching and aquatint, 1981. In early works Tanaka drew the images as if seen through a telephoto lens, but did not apply convergence. He later developed a similar telephotographic viewpoint, this time even emphasizing convergence. Sometimes this almost resulted in a wide-angle view, as in this etching. The big tree looming behind the roof not only seems to overwhelm the farmhouse, but also the viewer. The entire surface of this work has been etched with the needle. Only the dark branches and the shadow of the gable were given an added aquatint treatment.
Tanaka Ryōhei, Snow and Thatched Roof No. 2, from the exhibition ‘From Line to Landscape’ at the Museum für ostasiatische Kunst Köln, Dec 2024. Etching and aquatint, 1982. This seemingly simple composition the artist could have conceived to be made on a larger scale as one of his more monumental etchings, yet he chose to keep the work intimate. As in the following year this small etching would surprisingly be Tanaka’s only snow-themed work of 1982. In the background, particularly on the top left, he depicts a faint tree-studded mountain covered in snow of which further up shows whiter because of the heavier snow higher up. On the top right a mountain slope is seen, similarly whiter, between the branches of the bare tree. These details are very subtle and easily missed. Perhaps all Tanaka’s intimate etchings should be admired from up close and were never intended to be hung as art on the wall.
Tanaka Ryōhei, Big Roof, from the exhibition ‘From Line to Landscape’ at the Museum für ostasiatische Kunst Köln, Dec 2024. Etching and aquatint, 1980. In this design the shōji doors and the veranda F on the ground floor are dwarfed by the roof. The moon is mysteriously hiding in the mist Big Roof was printed in sepia ink, adding a warm tone to the organic textures of the farmhouse.
Tanaka Ryōhei, House with a Shoji Door No. 1, from the exhibition ‘From Line to Landscape’ at the Museum für ostasiatische Kunst Köln, Dec 2024. Etching and aquatint, 1980. This etching was made immediately after Snow Is Coming No. 2. The complexity of its composition of various wall textures contrasts sharply with the quietude of the previous work. To juxtapose various structures in combination with foreshortening takes courage and a great deal of mastery. Yet, Tanaka has managed to avoid a jumble of textures, and the spatial correlation of the four walls is completely clear. The angle of the roofline of the white kura (storehouse) wall on the right echoes the shape of the white paper in the shōji door.
Tanaka Ryōhei, Mount Ibuki, Early Spring, from the exhibition ‘From Line to Landscape’ at the Museum für ostasiatische Kunst Köln, Dec 2024. Etching and aquatint, 1980. A generous panoramic view of Mount Ibuki. The dramatically dark sky accentuates the whiteness of the lingering snow. A flock of wild ducks or geese fly westward at a high altitude, probably returning to nearby Lake Biwa. Traversing the mountain flank, a road climbs to the limestone quarry that has scarred the southeastern side. Except for the sky, which is aquatinted, the plate is line etched, from the darkest trees to the finest gradations of grays in the snow. A rare image in the artist’s oeuvre.
Tanaka Ryōhei, Yamato Alley, from the exhibition ‘From Line to Landscape’ at the Museum für ostasiatische Kunst Köln, Dec 2024. Etching and aquatint, 1979. By the late 1970s Tanaka’s etchings had become so popular, especially overseas, that he and Yamada Tetsuo decided to increase the number of prints in the artist’s editions from 100 to 120, and even 150, depending on image and size. Yamato Alley is a finely etched and aquatinted work. The bleak winter light falls on the steep- gabled roofs of the farmhouses which were once typical for this semirural area southwest of Kyoto. The artist used a very fine resin dust to aquatint the areas of the distant mountain and the walls, and much coarser granules of resin in a second aquatint to produce the effect of pebbles and sand on the path in the foreground.
Tanaka Ryōhei, Autumn Scene, Ōhara No. 2, from the exhibition ‘From Line to Landscape’ at the Museum für ostasiatische Kunst Köln, Dec 2024. Etching and aquatint, 1977. The pale autumn mist partly hides the mountains in the distance. A few fruits have been left on the persimmon tree in a gesture of kimamori, an old custom which is supposed to ensure a good harvest in the coming year. In the 1970s, the village of Ohara, just northeast of Kyoto, still boasted a number of thatched farmhouses. Today there are none left, except for one or two where the thatch has been covered with a protective corrugated iron cladding.
Tanaka Ryōhei, Snowy Hatago, from the exhibition ‘From Line to Landscape’ at the Museum für ostasiatische Kunst Köln, Dec 2024. Etching and aquatint, 1977. The tiny hamlet of Hatago is situated in the mountains north of Kyoto about halfway between the city and the Sea of Japan. It lies in a narrow valley and up until the 1970-s its remoteness had helped to preserve the buildings in that little agricultural community. In 1977 most of the farmhouses, huddled together, still had their thatched roofs intact and were well maintained. Nowadays, half a century later, the roofs of the farmhouses that did survive have had a modern tiling placed on them to protect the thatch and the wooden support structure which supports it, from the inhospitable wintery conditions of inland Honshu. This is the first somewhat ‘panoramic’ landscape that Tanaka produced. The faintly visible curved lines in the snowed-under the terraced paddies in the foreground seem to invite us to follow the snow down to the right, to the lower valley beyond.
Tanaka Ryōhei, Deserted House with Lingering Snow, from the exhibition ‘From Line to Landscape’ at the Museum für ostasiatische Kunst Köln, Dec 2024. Etching and aquatint, 1977. Most of Tanaka’s landscapes lack human figures, and in this work too the inhabitants seem to have passed on or moved away. The amado (storm door) is closed and in bad repair. The gable has started to collapse. The snow ies heavily on the thatched roof. Only a few abandoned tools, buckets and barrels testify to one-time human occupancy.
Tanaka Ryōhei, Hatago in Autumn, from the exhibition ‘From Line to Landscape’ at the Museum für ostasiatische Kunst Köln, Dec 2024. Etching, 1977. Up until this point in his oeuvre the artist had produced quite a number of pure line etchings, also of larger sizes, however none of them show the exhaustive variety of textures and etching techniques which he employed in this work. Tanaka took his inspiration for the theme from the small farming community of Hatago, yet the entire view is composed and concertinaed to form a mosaic-like image in strong telephotolike foreshortening behind the ripe persimmons on the branch in the foreground. It is technically intensely demanding to produce such a range of different textures each with the etching needle and in hues ranging from black to white. Although we may suspect light aquatinting in some areas, no aquatint has been used in this etching.
Tanaka Ryōhei, Bell Hammer, from the exhibition ‘From Line to Landscape’ at the Museum für ostasiatische Kunst Köln, Dec 2024. Etching and aquatint, 1976. The image and composition of this miniature work would have looked quite spectacular as one of Tanaka’s much larger works. The angle of observation is daring as we look up into the roof of a bell tower with a very large bronze bell. The bell hammer is actually a tree trunk and is suspended on the outside of the bell. It produces a low tone and a deep resonance that can be heard many miles away. In this image, the straight lines of the suspension ropes, which indicate the tension of the heavy weight of the hammer, run perpendicular to beams of the inner roof structure. However Tanaka purposefully off-centred the composition of the bell and the hammer to avoid a stark symmetrical grid, creating an appealing and natural image.
Tanaka Ryōhei, Veranda No. 1, from the exhibition ‘From Line to Landscape’ at the Museum für ostasiatische Kunst Köln, Dec 2024. Etching and aquatint, 1976. This is one of Tanaka’s more radical compositions. From early in his career, the artist has taken pleasure in the rendering of woodgrain. His unmatched technique enabled him to produce a finished copper plate with a structure resembling that of weathered wood. In earlier works the artist used a combination of line etching and aquatint to give wooden posts and beams an aged look. In this large etching, however, the grain of the veranda boards was entirely line etched.
Tanaka Ryōhei, Sekigahara Snow, from the exhibition ‘From Line to Landscape’ at the Museum für ostasiatische Kunst Köln, Dec 2024. Etching and aquatint, 1976. Following a few early etchings of snow scenes, snow would become a recurring subject in Tanaka’s oeuvre and a popular theme among his collectors. Except for the faintest shadows in the snow, which have been stippled with the needle and very briefly brushed with the mordant, the plate is line etched in an infinite array of textures. It should be noticed that in fact more than two thirds of the surface of the plate was left untouched to print blank: the white of the paper depicts the snow. The area of Sekigahara is notorious for heavy snowfall.
Tanaka Ryōhei, Wall No. 3, from the exhibition ‘From Line to Landscape’ at the Museum für ostasiatische Kunst Köln, Dec 2024. Etching and aquatint, 1976. Wall No. 3 is one of Tanaka’s boldest compositions. The cobweb visible in the open doorway at the top left of the darkly aquatinted section of the etching gives the impression that the building has fallen into disuse. Great skill is required to wipe and print this part without producing smudges on the thin white lines of the cobweb.
Tanaka Ryōhei, Persimmons and Roofs No. 2, from the exhibition ‘From Line to Landscape’ at the Museum für ostasiatische Kunst Köln, Dec 2024. Etching and aquatint, 1975. The viewer is in an elevated position looking down from a hill or a mountain slope onto the roofs of two thatched farmhouses and a persimmon tree beyond. The apparent proximity of the lighter foliage in the left foreground gives the impression of the image having been taken and cropped with the foreshortening qualities of a photographic tele lens. This very aspect together with the vertical image of this etching is strongly reminiscent of the tradition of Japanese scroll paintings, particularly those of landscapes that often seem to be seen from some elevation and show an almost telephoto-like vantage point. Yet both the elevated angle and this point of view is quite rare in Tanaka’s oeuvre. Although the official reading also mentions the use of aquatint, in fact the entire plate is needle etched with only a small area of aquatint in the triangle of the roof gable with its ventilation opening.
Tanaka Ryōhei, Wind, from the exhibition ‘From Line to Landscape’ at the Museum für ostasiatische Kunst Köln, Dec 2024. Etching and lift-ground aquatint 1976. The withering blast of the storm can almost be felt. Tanaka indicates the movements of the tempestuous air by applying an almost calligraphic wash of sugar-lift aquatint to the sky, which is only shallowly etched. The storm is literally blowing the building apart. Except for the shallow aquatint in the sky section, the plate is entirely line etched and drawn with so much virtuosity that parts of the thatch actually seem to be in motion, the straw on the collapsed rooftop fluttering in the wind.
Tanaka Ryōhei, Thatched Roof by Night, from the exhibition ‘From Line to Landscape’ at the Museum für ostasiatische Kunst Köln, Dec 2024. Etching and aquatint, 1975. In this print, the second in a series of bold architectural compositions following Collapsing Roof No. 4, the artist makes clever use l of the aquatint technique for the dark section I forming the sky. That blackness and the deep | shadow underneath the eaves accentuate the light of the (invisible) cold autumn or winter moon shining on the roof and the plumes of I the miscanthus grass (susuki) in the foreground. The regular spacing of the vertical bearers in the walls of the house and the shed subtly emphasize the square dimensions of the image, a size and format favored by the artist.
Tanaka Ryōhei, Mountain Houses, from the exhibition ‘From Line to Landscape’ at the Museum für ostasiatische Kunst Köln, Dec 2024. Etching and aquatint, 1975. This is the third of three masterly modest little etchings produced in the spring and early summer of 1975. In this print Tanaka uses aquatint techniques in combination with line etching to depict the trees on the mountainside with superior virtuosity. The structures and textures of the weathered roofs of the farmhouses naturally fuse with the foliage of the surrounding trees.
Tanaka Ryōhei, Collapsing Roof No. 4, from the exhibition ‘From Line to Landscape’ at the Museum für ostasiatische Kunst Köln, Dec 2024. Etching, 1975. Collapsing Roof no. 4 represents the artist’s first use of this particular large square format for a purely architectural subject. The plate is entirely ine etched and has deeply bitten cross-hatching in the darkest sections as well as very fine lines on the right where the thatch seems to dissolve into the sky beyond. A masterpiece of etching.
Tanaka Ryōhei, Trees No. 3, from the exhibition ‘From Line to Landscape’ at the Museum für ostasiatische Kunst Köln, Dec 2024. Etching, 1974. This print, depicting a dormant orchard in winter, is completely line etched. The shapes of the branches, the contrasts they present, and the sense of distance to the trees in the background are entirely achieved through patient drawing with the etching needle and careful timing of the consecutive biting sessions. If we compare this print to Winter Orchard of only seven years earlier ( 5), we find that Tanaka had by now reached the high technical level he would maintain in the years to come.
Tanaka Ryōhei, Village at Dusk, from the exhibition ‘From Line to Landscape’ at the Museum für ostasiatische Kunst Köln, Dec 2024.Color etching, 1974. Whereas in the majority of the artist’s landscapes mountains are a combination of line etching and aquatint, in this work the blue and the black plate were entirely drawn with the etching needle. Skillful variation in the cross-hatching gives the forested mountainside its apparent structure. The flower is a higanbana (red spider lily or Lycoris radiata), which flowers at the end of summer. In Japan it is associated with final farewells. According to Buddhist belief it is the flower of passing and rebirth and therefore often used at funerals. The suggestion of evening twilight and the tonality of the blue ink, rarely used in Tanaka’s etchings, add to the melancholic atmosphere.
Tanaka Ryōhei, Roofs of Hida No. 5, from the exhibition ‘From Line to Landscape’ at the Museum für ostasiatische Kunst Köln, Dec 2024. Etching and aquatint, 1974. Although people rarely appear in Tanaka’s etchings, human presence is frequently felt. This may have to do with the fact that in rural Japan farmhouses, and sometimes entire villages, often seem quite deserted. Moreover, since the artist lacked formal training in figure studies, he was probably not comfortable with depicting people. This is a rare and successful attempt. The stooping figure of the woman, possibly planting rice seedlings, dominates the image. Her hat and scarf protect her from what seems to be harsh sunlight.
Tanaka Ryōhei, Collapsing Roof No. 3, from the exhibition ‘From Line to Landscape’ at the Museum für ostasiatische Kunst Köln, Dec 2024. Etching, 1973. In this print, the thick, black oil-based etching ink has congealed and dried in a matte black finish The darker lines, particularly in the weeds in the foreground and some of the darker textures of the roof, are etched so deeply that if one could run one’s fingers across them, they would be ‘readable’ like Braille. The print is a variation on Tanaka’s earlier Spring is Near and the combination of bare trees and stark thatched roofs would occasionally return in his work.
Tanaka Ryōhei, Roofs of Hida No. 4, from the exhibition ‘From Line to Landscape’ at the Museum für ostasiatische Kunst Köln, Dec 2024. Etching and aquatint, printed in sepia on chine collé, 1973. Hida is the northernmost region in the prefecture of Gifu, close to Japan’s Northern Alps. In the early 1970s Tanaka made various trips to this region to record its characteristic multi-storied thatched farmhouses, some of which were already deserted. Roofs of Hida no. 4 is one of Tanaka’s most playful prints: from behind the half-opened sliding door of a farmhouse, we look towards another, obviously deserted, farmhouse with torn paper window screens. The dark aquatint section on the right contrasts sharply with the sunlit farmhouse opposite, evoking a surrealistic atmosphere, the sense that the whole village is, in fact, deserted. In the left section Tanaka Has applied the technique of chine collé. Each single piece of the wafer-thin gampi paper had to be cut and torn separately to provide a realistic image0 the damaged paper of the sliding door. Therefore no two prints in this edition are identical.
Tanaka Ryōhei, Two Thatched Roofs No. 2, from the exhibition ‘From Line to Landscape’ at the Museum für ostasiatische Kunst Köln, Dec 2024. Etching, 1973. Although modest in size and subject, this work eminently represents Tanaka’s artistic and graphic qualities: a sober composition with an elevated foreshortened view, executed in simple line etching with a courageous use of various drawing and biting techniques. The rough, deep cross- hatching of the sharp cut-offs of the reeds in the foreground roof contrasts almost tangibly with the soft, finely etched layers of the thatch. The shadows of the overhanging rooflines were not achieved by aquatinting, but by densely cross-hatched line etching.
Tanaka Ryōhei, Trees No. 2, from the exhibition ‘From Line to Landscape’ at the Museum für ostasiatische Kunst Köln, Dec 2024. Etching, 1974. Careful studies of trees regularly turn up in Tanaka’s work. Trees No. 2 is a large and ambitious etching. The roots, trunk and branches are entirely done in cross-hatched line etching. The large tree, now in a bad condition, stands just outside the compound of Shōren-in, adjacent to the Chion-in, in Kyoto’s Higashiyama-Sanjo district. It has inspired many a Kyoto artist.
Tanaka Ryōhei, Okinawa Roofs, from the exhibition ‘From Line to Landscape’ at the Museum für ostasiatische Kunst Köln, Dec 2024. Etching and aquatint, 1974. In 1973 Tanaka had a solo exhibition at the Okinawa Hilton Hotel. Okinawa Roofs shows the local style of roof covering, where tiles are fixed with mortar to prevent them from flying off during the tropical typhoons that annually rage across Japan’s southernmost sub-archipelago. Between the cross-hatched sections of the sturdy tiled roofs, the finely etched leaves of a tropical banana palm add a subtle touch of local vegetation.
Enlarged version of one of the exhibitted etchings in the exhibition hall.
Tanaka Ryōhei, Snowbird, from the exhibition ‘From Line to Landscape’ at the Museum für ostasiatische Kunst Köln, Dec 2024. Etching and aquatint, 2008. Tanaka was 75 years old when he created this powerful print. A lone crow endures the heavy snowfall with no apparent interest in a last overripe persimmon left on the tree according to custom. The etching gives the impression of having been printed from two separate plates: one with the deeply bitten and densely drawn branches of the tree in black, and a second aquatinted plate inked in gray. The entire image, however, was etched and printed using one single plate. The artist mixed four different inks in order to achieve the combination of an intense black in the deeper groves of the silhouetted tree and the crow, and the warm gray tone for the shallowly bitten aquatinted sky. The persimmon is hand painted-in.
Tanaka Ryōhei, Momiji Daimon-ji, from the exhibition ‘From Line to Landscape’ at the Museum für ostasiatische Kunst Köln, Dec 2024. Etching and aquatint, 2007. Daimon-ji is an old well-known Buddist temple from the Shingon sect in Ibaraki City in Osaka prefecture and very close to Tanaka’s home. The artist was already 74 years of age when he etched and also printed the entire edition of this large work from two separate plates. The most important sculpture in this temple is the Bosatsu Sho Nyoirin Kanzeon Bodhisattva which was carved in the Heian period (794-1185) and is designated as an important national cultural property. The complex can be entered through a small gate at the top of a steep ten-step stone stairs and in autumn boasts richly coloured red maples. Tanaka took some artistic liberties in this print by leaving out the old timber door in the wall on the immediate left of the gate as it would have distracted from the serenity of the image.
Tanaka Ryōhei, Remaining Persimmons, from the exhibition ‘From Line to Landscape’ at the Museum für ostasiatische Kunst Köln, Dec 2024. Etching and aquatint, 2005. By now in his early seventies, Tanaka would continue to create large etchings, sometimes with a second plate for colour. The needle-drawn lines become more effective and are lightly bitten, adding to the crispness of the image. In this work, as always printed by the artist himself in an edition of 100 plus ten artist proofs- all immaculately wiped and printed - Tanaka used a second plate for the orange persimmons. This means inking and wiping rather large plates 220 times and running them through the press in perfect registration.
Tanaka Ryōhei, Harvest Season No. 2, from the exhibition ‘From Line to Landscape’ at the Museum für ostasiatische Kunst Köln, Dec 2024. Etching and aquatint, 1984. Yamada Tetsuo, the primary dealer of Tanaka’s work in the 1970 and 1980-s and the publisher of the first three catalogue raisonnés, included this etching in the colour-etching section of the 1963-1990 raisonne. The clever use of both rather deeply bitten line etching and aquatint in combination with the very finely applied and briefly bitten aquatint in the -still unharvested - rice underneath the stone wall as well in the bamboo and the trees behind the farm buildings indeed gives the impression that this etching was printed of two separate plates. However only one plate was used and while the deeper line-bitten sepia ink after the wiping of the plate shows up much darker, as in the lines of the wooded poles holding up the drying racks and the tree foliage around the hamlet, the same ink leaves a warmer hue in the thinly bitten aquatint sections in the fields in front and the tress behind the farmhouses.
Tanaka Ryōhei, Backlit Landscape, from the exhibition ‘From Line to Landscape’ at the Museum für ostasiatische Kunst Köln, Dec 2024. Etching and aquatint, 1985. In this print, the rice has apparently been harvested some months ago. The sky is crisp and clear. Judging from the shadows on the road and the roof of the farmhouse, the sun shines at a low angle. It is early spring.
Tanaka Ryōhei, Okusaga, from the exhibition ‘From Line to Landscape’ at the Museum für ostasiatische Kunst Köln, Dec 2024. Etching and aquatint, 1986. Okusaga or Inner-Saga, is an area to the west of Kyoto, famous for its natural beauty. It is a much-loved hiking destination in autumn. Quite a few traditional buildings have survived in this semi-rural village, and the City of Kyoto has designated part of the area as one of four Traditional Structure Conservation Districts. One has to examine the actual print to be able to appreciate the subtlety of atmosphere in this work. The shōji (sliding door) is open; the mood is intimate, inviting. The line-etching techniques are richly varied, and the partly burnished aquatints in the windows of the shed give a convincing rendition of pre-war soda-lime glass panes.
Tanaka Ryōhei, The Snow Stopped, from the exhibition ‘From Line to Landscape’ at the Museum für ostasiatische Kunst Köln, Dec 2024. Etching and aquatint, 1986. All areas except for the sky, a tiny section around the footprints in the snow, and a finely aquatinted area on the flank of the roof are line teched. Tanaka created a mood that only he could achieve in etching. This print demonstrates his careful observation of the atmosphere. The sky seems to become lighter as if the clouds are about lift. The diffuse light is reflected in the fresh wet snow. Unlike his more dramatic etchings, this print has no sharp shadows or contrasts - it may look deceptively dull at first sight.
Tanaka Ryōhei, Summer Room (Sepia), from the exhibition ‘From Line to Landscape’ at the Museum für ostasiatische Kunst Köln, Dec 2024.Color etching and aquatint, 1986. Tanaka printed two versions of this color etching of two plates: he used sepia on the key plate for 60 prints - another 60 were printed with black ink on the key plate. Japanese architectural details lend themselves extremely well for the interplay of abstract subdivisions of the kind we observe here. The variations in the divisions of shōji (sliding doors), kōshi (latticework), hanging curtains, and even the tatami (straw matting), provide a Mondrianesque mosaic. Tanaka’s contemporaries, particularly woodblock printmakers such as Sekmo Junichiro (1914-1988), see fig. 78a) and Clifton Karhu (1927-2007) repeatedly explored these graphically tempting architectural features.
Tanaka Ryōhei, Back Gate, from the exhibition ‘From Line to Landscape’ at the Museum für ostasiatische Kunst Köln, Dec 2024. Etching and aquatint, 1987. As often in Tanaka’s etchings, the viewer is not allowed to enter the privacy of what looks like a beautiful compound. The print is strong in composition and rich in textures. To depict the feathery leaf canopy of the maple tree, Tanaka used very fine line-etched cross-hatching as well as a combination of very light consecutive bitings of some leaves while stopping out hundreds of others to leave them only lightly etched. The work is beautifully composed and a technical tour de force. The characteristic smoothness of the bark of the Japanese maple is almost tangible.
Tanaka Ryōhei, The Great Gingko Tree, from the exhibition ‘From Line to Landscape’ at the Museum für ostasiatische Kunst Köln, Dec 2024.Color etching and aquatint, 1988. After seventeen years, Tanaka returns to his ambitious and very successful Gingko Tree of 1972. Again he juxtaposes the dark roofs, deeply etched and printed in black, and the autumnal golden color of the gingko tree, in this case with an additional a la poupee printing of the red and blue-green of other trees. The foliage is still thick and full and the escalating coloring of the leaves is at its most spectacular. The saturated darkness of the roofs gives the impression of the thatch being wet, which underscores the autumnal atmosphere.
Tanaka Ryōhei, Mud Wall No. 4, from the exhibition ‘From Line to Landscape’ at the Museum für ostasiatische Kunst Köln, Dec 2024. Etching, 2005. This is one of a few cases where Tanaka did not etch a plate right to its edges, but faded the contours of the composition. This device softens the rigid square of the image and gives us the impression of a natural central focus. The soft shadows cast on the wall by the foliage were cross- hatched with the needle in various directions so as to give the impression of shimmering movement.
Tanaka Ryōhei, Great Gingko Tree No. 2, from the exhibition ‘From Line to Landscape’ at the Museum für ostasiatische Kunst Köln, Dec 2024. Etching and aquatint, 2004. Our gaze is forced up towards the eaves of a pagoda or temple roof corner, with a massive gingko tree in full autumnal glory beyond. The artist prepared the darker branches and shadows on the key plate to be superimposed in the printing process amidst the rich yellow foliage of the gingko tree. Apart from the intensely etched, deep yellow section of the tree, a thinly bitten aquatinted section in the ‘yellow plate’ is visible in the wooden structure underneath the eaves, which gives it an organic feel and links the pure black of the roof to the color of the ginko.
Tanaka Ryōhei, The Koshihata Gingko Tree, from the exhibition ‘From Line to Landscape’ at the Museum für ostasiatische Kunst Köln, Dec 2024. Etching and aquatint, 2004. Soon after the resounding success of his Great Gingko Tree No. 2, Tanaka made this color etching of a similar subject. This time, the huge gingko tree stands within the walled compound of a detached villa on the outskirts of the hamlet of Koshihata in the mountains northwest of Kyoto. The villa dates to the early 18th century and had been deserted for fifty years when, in the 1970s, it was restored to its former glory by the American potter Doug Lawrie (b. 1933), who lived there with his wife, textile artist Joelle, for many years. The couple was well acquainted with Tanaka. The thatched building in this etching is the outer gate of the villa. The villa and its surroundings were repeatedly used as a location for period films.
Tanaka Ryōhei, House With a Big Tree, from the exhibition ‘From Line to Landscape’ at the Museum für ostasiatische Kunst Köln, Dec 2024. Etching and aquatint, 1988. A generously sized etching of a well-kept farmhouse with a walled courtyard and gate. Although he is famous for his images of the roofs of abandoned farmhouses and buildings in disrepair, Tanaka also liked depicting well- maintained traditional houses and roofs. The thatch is so regular that one could suppose the house was recently renovated.
Tanaka Ryōhei, Kyoto Village, from the exhibition ‘From Line to Landscape’ at the Museum für ostasiatische Kunst Köln, Dec 2024. Etching and aquatint, 1988. The winter wind, indicated by delicate curved ines in the sky, blows through the bare branches of the trees towering over the sleepy village of Koto in Shiga Prefecture. Although views of entire villages do occur in Tanaka’s oeuvre, they are not common. Shiga Prefecture is where the artist’s family has its roots; he returned to the area for inspiration throughout his life.
Tanaka Ryōhei, Ine No. 1, from the exhibition ‘From Line to Landscape’ at the Museum für ostasiatische Kunst Köln, Dec 2024. Etching and aquatint, 1988. From 1976 to 1978, Tanaka produced a small number of etchings of boats in an attempt to diversity his imagery. These did not reap the expected success and the artist abandoned his maritime adventure. Ten years later, however, he produced two quite interesting harbor scenes: Ine no. 1 and no. 2. The challenge of Ine no. 1 was to successfully depict water and its reflections. The etching was an artistic and commercial success and the edition of 120, plus 12 artist proofs, soon sold out. The boat is named Ine Maru. Maru means ‘circle’, ‘entirety’, ‘whole’. It is a suffix used in names of almost all Japanese seagoing vessels. It indicates a ‘self-contained world, which is what a ship is supposed to be. On the chimney of the boat the artist playfully put in the first character of his own family name, ‘TA’.
Tanaka Ryōhei, Deserted House in Kameoka, from the exhibition ‘From Line to Landscape’ at the Museum für ostasiatische Kunst Köln, Dec 2024. Etching and aquatint, 1990. The dramatic chiaroscuro caused by the bright light of the full moon casting dark shadows under the roof and into the house, makes this rather prosaic deserted house seem haunted. In Japan, this building would perfectly qualify as a obakeyashiki, a haunted house. A stray cat has made it its home. Tanaka’s moonlit works sometimes give the impression that the artist’s dark aquatinting of the sky may have been inspired by what is known as nuit americaine, a term for cinematic techniques which make it possible to present scenes filmed in broad daylight as moonlit night scenes.
Tanaka Ryōhei, Chishaku-in, from the exhibition ‘From Line to Landscape’ at the Museum für ostasiatische Kunst Köln, Dec 2024. Etching and aquatint, 2002. The garden of this temple in the eastern hills of Kyoto is famous for the annual display of its countless well-manicured azalea bushes on the eastern slopes above the pond. They flower between the end of May and the end of June, but Tanaka chose to depict the rocks and the azaleas as seen from the wooden veranda in winter, when the vegetation is mostly a subdued green. He made effective use of the limited color scope that two copper plates (in this case black and green) can offer in the registration of superimposed printing. He burnished the aquatinted areas underneath the rocks on both the key plate and the color plate to create the impression that the rocks are reflected in the water.
Tanaka Ryōhei, Vineyard in Winter, from the exhibition ‘From Line to Landscape’ at the Museum für ostasiatische Kunst Köln, Dec 2024. Etching, 2001. In 1974 Tanaka made a large and very intricately etched work: Trees no. 3 ( 25). The work was immensely popular and the edition of 100 proofs was sold out by Yamada within a year. The artist never succumbed to any pressure to create a ‘new version’ of this work but in 2001, nearly 27 years later, he found a subject that enticed him to create this Vineyard in Winter of exactly the same dimensions as Trees No. 3. The image is far more reduced than its predecessor and probably unwittingly, particularly in the top half of the work, compares to Mondrian’s earliest attempts to abstraction in painting trees and their branches. The almost minimalistic rendering of swirling and moving grass and weeds in the lower 1/3rd section of this etching strongly reminds us of what are possibly the greatest graphic achievements of Van Gogh: his drawings in pen and ink executed during his final and fatal stay in the asylum in Arles. The close-up distorted vine trunks are not contoured but are etched and shaped organically.
Tanaka Ryōhei, Nagayamon Nr. 2, from the exhibition ‘From Line to Landscape’ at the Museum für ostasiatische Kunst Köln, Dec 2024. Etching and aquatint auf chine collé, 2001. Tanaka had used a horizontal format of this scale only three times before in his long career. The edition of the present work was printed on chine collé, which is a painstaking and time-consuming printing process.
Tanaka Ryōhei, Mountain Village, from the exhibition ‘From Line to Landscape’ at the Museum für ostasiatische Kunst Köln, Dec 2024. Etching and aquatint, 1992. This etching and the closely related Roofs along Kurama Road of two years later, add a new dimension to lanaka’s rich repertoire. The cropped image is seen from an elevated angle. Straight tree trunks and some shoots provide a repoussoir, creating distance to the scene which pives the print its title. A velvet aquatint subdues the surrounding forest, darkening and softening its atmosphere, while at the same time accentuating the roofs and the rigid verticals of the pine trunks.
Tanaka Ryōhei, Arihara in Autumn, from the exhibition ‘From Line to Landscape’ at the Museum für ostasiatische Kunst Köln, Dec 2024. Etching and aquatint, 1991. To be able to fully concentrate on the needle drawing and the process of the repeated biting of each plate, Tanaka never worked on more than one etching at a time. Arihara in Autumn was done immediately after Keihoku in Summer (2x, 1991). It is a clear autumn day. The miscanthus grass (susuki) has already formed its plumes. The roof of the shed reflects the bright autumn sunlight, in contrast to the light on the thatched roofs which seems to become absorbed by the thatch. Tanaka’s use of the roulette is visible in vertically dotted lines on the pine trunks in the previous work, Keihoku in Summer, and in the timber cladding of the shed in the present work.
Tanaka Ryōhei, Sanjūsangendō, from the exhibition ‘From Line to Landscape’ at the Museum für ostasiatische Kunst Köln, Dec 2024. Etching and aquatint, 1976. An unusual view of part of the famous temple’s long main hall. The name of the building literally means: ‘33-ken hall’ , the ken being an ancient linear measure equivalent to 1.99 yards or 1.82 meters. Tanaka manages to actual y emphasize the length of the hall by taking a slice from the middle section, in this way suggesting that the structure continues endlessly on either side. This unorthodox view is interrupted by the repoussoir of two trees figuring as strong verticals in the foreground. The intricate realism of the tree trunks trick us into also seeing the naively drawn pebbles as realistic.
Tanaka Ryōhei, Gion-Nishijin, from the exhibition ‘From Line to Landscape’ at the Museum für ostasiatische Kunst Köln, Dec 2024. Etching and aquatint, 1994. During the Pacific War the city of Kyoto was spared from bombing because of its cultural significance. Today, it is a unique open air museum of Japanese architecture. Both the Gion district, famous for its nightlife, in central eastern Kyoto, and Nishijin, the traditional weaving district in the central northeastern part of town, boast concentrations of characteristic townhouses called machiya. These two-story buildings, with their lattice screens and hanging bamboo curtains, are usually quite narrow since taxes used to be determined by the width of the facade. Most of the owners were wealthy so in order to compensate for the narrowness, these town houses are often quite elongated and sometimes have beautiful small courtyard gardens. An old designation for these narrow and deep houses is unagi no nedoko, an eel’s sleeping place.
That such an exhibition is shown in Cologne is not incidental. The Museum für Ostasiatische Kunst has long maintained a focus on works that reward slow, attentive viewing rather than spectacle. From Line to Landscape fits this profile precisely. Tanaka’s etchings cannot be grasped at a glance. They demand proximity, time, and repeated looking. And this is actually, how I approached them during my visit, similarly to how I approached the photograph by Gregory Crewdson I wrote about recently: Standing close to the print, examining the fine lines, fine structures, zooming out a little, exploring all the small details and little stories embedded, then stepping back to view the overall composition. Sometimes, it felt like exploring that could have resembled a Ghibli-like landscape, were it not for the absence of color and the quietness of the scenes.
Tanaka Ryōhei, Bell Tower, Tōdai-ji, from the exhibition ‘From Line to Landscape’ at the Museum für ostasiatische Kunst Köln, Dec 2024. Etching ond aquatint 1997. The Tōdai-ji in Nara holds the record of the biggest wooden structure in the world and was originally constructed in 752. In reality this bell tower is within the temple complex of but the artist chose to depict it as if it were floating on its own. The slightly exaggerated curve of the flying eaves furthermore gives the building on almost surrealistic lightness. Tanaka opted to depict the pebbles in the foreground in exactly the some naive style as he had done many years earlier in Temple Bell Tower of Doitokuji of 1964 and his famous Temple Bell Tower of Myoshinji of the same year and in Adashino of 1965. Again in 1976 he etched the some pottern of pebbles on the grounds of Sanjūsangendō.
Having such an extraordinary and rare exhibition in Cologne was a privilege. It reminded me again how lucky we are to have institutions that value depth over breadth, quietness over noise, or noise over perfection, and sustained looking over fleeting impressions. If you missed the exhibition, I recommend checking out the catalogueꜛ which contains high-quality reproductions of all exhibited works along with insightful essays.
Acknowledgment by the museum for the donation of etchings by the widow of Tanaka Ryōhei, Takiko Tanaka: “The Museum of East Asian Art Cologne would like to thank Tanaka Takiko, widow of the artist, for her generous donation of 14 etchings, eleven of which are on display in these showcases.”
Expeditions – travelogues and photographs by the museum founders 1897-1899, Museum für ostasiatische Kunst Köln, Dec 2024.
Exhibition hall.
Exhibition hall.
Frieda Fischer (1874–1945) and Adolf Fischer (1856–1914) founded the Museum of East Asian Art in Cologne in 1909. Adolf Fischer was trained as an art historian and worked initially as an independent scholar and collector. Frieda Fischer was not a passive companion. The exhibition makes this explicit by foregrounding her travel diaries and photographs. She documented architecture, landscapes, daily life, and social encounters with remarkable precision. Her notes are structured observations, often attentive to context and provenance.
Mr. and Mrs. Fischer at Christmas in Kyoto 1898, Wada Eisaku (1874-1959).
Their first major journey together took place between October 1897 and May 1899. The couple traveled from Berlin to Japan, staying for extended periods in Kobe, Kyoto, and Tokyo. In spring 1898, Adolf Fischer continued alone to Taiwan, which had come under Japanese colonial rule only three years earlier in 1895. This temporal proximity is crucial. Fischer encountered Taiwan at the very beginning of Japanese administration, at a moment when ethnographic documentation and colonial governance were deeply entangled.
Frieda Fischer (1874-1945), Japanisches Tagebuch. Lehr- und Wanderjahre (Japanese Diary. Years of Learning and Traveling), Munich: F. Bruckmann, 1938. Frieda Fischer’s first publication after her removal from office by the National Socialists appeared on the 25th anniversary of the opening of the museum on October 25th 1938. Left: Tsuba with fan and pumpkin vine, Master of the Shoami family, Iron, gold-inlaid, Japan, 17/18th cent.
The exhibition draws on previously unpublished travel diaries, reports, and photographs. These materials reveal how systematically the Fischers worked. The diaries contain descriptions of temples, collections, and workshops, but also meticulous records of purchases, prices, packing lists, and shipping arrangements. What emerges is not the romantic image of the flâneur-collector, but a disciplined acquisition strategy grounded in art historical classification and logistical planning.
Travel camera around 1898, with tripod, case and laboratory equipment. On his research trip Fischer took a 13 x 18 camera with him as well as utensils to develop the photo-graphs en route. That way he removed the weight of heavy, faulty glass negatives from his luggage.
The Fishers prepared themselves for their journey by studying language, culture, and geography. Here are some of the books they used for their preparation.
George Psalmanazar (1679-1763), An Historical and Geographical Description of Formosa, an Island Subject to the Emperor of Japan, London, 1704. At the beginning of the 18th century, an imaginative impostor impressed the English public with adventurous descriptions of his supposed homeland ‘Formosa’. To complete his charlatanry, he wrote a book that depicted an entirely invented state, including its social structure, coins, alphabet and way of life. In a work published posthumously in 1764, he dispelled the fairy tale, without however revealing his pseudonym.
A map of the island of Taiwan, then known as Formosa.
Travel diaries documenting the years 1897-1899.
Photo-plates, Adolf Fischer, March - April 1898.
After returning to Berlin in June 1899, Adolf Fischer had assembled a collection of more than 5,000 objects, primarily Japanese works of applied art, but also including items from China and Taiwan. The collection was displayed in his Berlin apartment at Nollendorfplatz, which became informally known as the “Nollendorfeum”. This private museum already attracted attention among artists, collectors, and museum professionals.
Nollendorfeum ‘Red Studio’ (living room), Wada Eisaku (1874-1959), watercolour, Berlin, 1899.
In January 1900, Fischer organized an exhibition of Japanese art in Vienna at the request of the Vereinigung bildender Künstler Österreichs (Association of Visual Artists of Austria). Even before the exhibition opened, and throughout its duration, there were inquiries about purchasing individual objects. Fischer refused. This refusal is revealing. It indicates that he did not understand the collection as a commodity to be dispersed, but as a coherent corpus intended for scholarly and institutional preservation.
Frieda Fischer in the ‘Red Studio’ of the ‘Nollendorfeum’, Adolf Fischer (1856-1914), Photograph, Berlin, dated 1897.
In 1901, Fischer agreed to transfer the collection to the Königliches Museum für Völkerkunde in Berlin (Royal Museum of Ethnology in Berlin), today the Ethnologisches Museum Berlin (Museum of Ethnology Berlin). The assistant director Albert Grünwedel described the collection as a “decided desideratum” (= an item that is needed or wanted) for the museum. The original price was set at 70,000 Reichsmarks, a sum the museum could not pay outright. An annuity arrangement was therefore agreed upon, with annual payments of 2,500 marks, to be transferred to Frieda Fischer in the event of Adolf Fischer’s death. As part of the agreement, Fischer was awarded the honorary title of professor.
Shortly thereafter, Fischer donated almost the entire collection outright, retaining only seven hanging scrolls. This gesture effectively transformed a private collection into a public scholarly resource. It also freed Fischer to pursue a more ambitious goal: the creation of an independent museum devoted exclusively to East Asian art.
Among the objects acquired during the journey were ethnographic items from Taiwan. At the time, the island’s indigenous populations were already subject to extensive cultural disruption. The exhibition contextualizes these objects carefully, explaining the distinction between the plains peoples, collectively referred to as Pepo, and the various mountain peoples. Many Pepo groups had undergone heavy sinicization since the seventeenth century, resulting in the loss of languages and traditions. In contrast, several highland and coastal groups retained distinctive cultural practices until the end of Japanese rule in 1945.
Expeditions – travelogues and photographs by the museum founders 1897-1899, Museum für ostasiatische Kunst Köln, Dec 2024.
Today, sixteen indigenous groups are officially recognized in Taiwan, including the Atayal, Paiwan, Bunun, Amis, and Tao. Fischer encountered several of these groups directly, including the Atayal, Paiwan, Pilam (Puyuma), and Amis. He also documented the Pepo. Notably, Fischer wrote about the Tao (Yami) of Lanyu Island without ever visiting the island himself, relying on secondhand accounts. This is an important reminder that even first-hand ethnography is often entangled with mediated knowledge.
Overview of Taiwan’s 16 nationally recognized indigenous peoples.
Only thirteen of the original sixteen Taiwanese indigenous objects from Fischer’s collection can be located today. Their fragmented survival mirrors the broader historical losses inflicted upon indigenous cultures through colonization, assimilation, and museum practices that often prioritized classification over living context.
Another map of the island of Taiwan, then known as ‘Formosa’. Digital reprint, Kanda, Tokyo, 1901. The border between the Han Chinese and the indigenous peoples is marked in red. Adolf Fischer encountered the ethnic groups circled in red.
Photo-plates, Adolf Fischer, March - April 1898.
Photo-plates, Adolf Fischer, March - April 1898.
Sword of the Atayal or the Seediq (Atayal: lalaw tuki), iron, wood, bamboo, rattan, hemp Taiwan, 2nd half 19th cent.
Spoon (Paiwan: kizing; Rukai: kidringi; Pilam: idrus oder / or karayup), wood, 2nd half 19th cent.
Paiwan mens cap (Paiwan: tjalupung), leather, Taiwan, 2nd half 19th cent.
Parwan headdresses, Wada Eisaku (1874-1959), ink on paper, Berlin, 1899.
‘Hunting god Kachirai’ and ‘God Pogatan’, print template for Streifzüge durch Formosa (‘Expeditions through Formosa’), Berlin, 1900.
Paiwan, wall photo. The chief Setang from Tamari (today Taimali, Taitung) with two children in front of a slate tablet of the hunting god Kachirai. Fischer mistakenly thought that Setang’s rank sign, a blossom, consisted of panther teeth, but they were actually made from fangs of wild boars. Here: People from Tamari. Wada Eisaku (1874-1959).
Paiwan, wall photo. The chief Setang from Tamari (today Taimali, Taitung) with two children in front of a slate tablet of the hunting god Kachirai. Fischer mistakenly thought that Setang’s rank sign, a blossom, consisted of panther teeth, but they were actually made from fangs of wild boars. Here: ‘Chief Setang with people from Tamari’.Wada Eisaku (1874-1959).
Captured Chinese Head, Wada Eisaku (1874-1959), watercolour, Berlin, 1899. Headhunting was an archaic custom of many Austronesian peoples that was practised in Taiwan until the beginning of the 20th century. The motivation for this act of violence was linked to ritual meanings that varied among the different ethnic groups - apart from the Tao (Yami) who settled on the island of Lanyu and did not practise this custom.
Expeditions – travelogues and photographs by the museum founders 1897-1899, Museum für ostasiatische Kunst Köln, Dec 2024.
The Fishers also documented their time in Japan extensively through photographs illustrations, and objects acquired or got as gifts. Here are some examples from the exhibition:
Illustration for Bilder aus Japan (‘Pictures from Japan), Franz Hohenberger (1867-1941), ink on paper Berlin, 1896. Based on studio photographs, these ink drawings form the illustrative material for Adolf Fischer’s first book Bilder aus Japan (‘Pictures from Japan’), which was published on Adolf and Frieda Fischer’s wedding day.
Book with text and illustrations. Unfortunately I forgot to note down the title and author. Could be Bilder aus Japan (‘Pictures from Japan’) by Adolf Fischer.
Structure of a Japanese sword, drawing for ‘Bilder aus Japan’ (‘Pictures from Japan’), Franz Hohenberger (1867-1941), ink on paper, Berlin, 1895/96. And: Japanese sword with accessories, metal, ray skin, silk cord, black lacquer Japan, 19th cent. Wakizashi: Japanese shortsword. Tsuba: Sword guard. Kozuka, Kogatana: Small utility knife. Kogai: Hairpin (sword accessory). Menuki: Decorative grip ornament. Fuchi: Handle collar. Kashira: Pommel or end cap of the sword handle.
Crow on a plum tree with haiku poem, Baigetsutei Fūsamaru (active 19th cent.), Sig: Fūsamaru suichū manga (‘Drawn at random by Fūsamaru when he was completely drunk’), surimono woodblock print, Japan, 19th cent.
Incense burner in the shape of a crane, bronze with patina, Japan, 2nd half 19th cent.
Bird on a lotus leaf, bronze, Japan, Meiji period (1868-1912). The bird’s wings are removable and incense could be burned in the cavity below. The fragrant smoke escaped through slits in the wings.
Sparrows and chrysanthemum, Gyoku-Eijo (active late 19th cent.-early 20th cent.) and pupils, light colours on silk Japan, 1899. Painted in the presence of Mr and Mrs Fischer and presented as a gift.
Fan painter at work Wada Eisaku (1874-1959), watercolour, Japan, dated 1898.
Peacock as incense burner, bronze, Japan, Meiji period (1868-1912).
Ukiyo-e by Utamaro, Kitagawa. Woodblockprint, hasira-e. Depicting two oiran from the Matsubaya.
The Kabuki actor Matsumoto Koshiro IV as the Fish Peddler Gorobei, after Tōshūsai Sharaku (Japanese, active 1794–1795).
Jackdaw on a branch (left) and Heron in the reeds (center) and Crow on a branch (right). Left and center: Masao alias Keikoku Gejo (1841-1920), ink on silk, Japan, 1899. Both paintings were painted and acquired on23 March 1899 in the presence of Mr and Mrs Fischer.
The decision to found a Museum of East Asian Art in Cologne in 1909 was neither obvious nor predetermined. Cologne was not the first city Adolf Fischer had envisioned as the site of his museum. In 1904, he initially selected Kiel, which he regarded as a growing city of strategic and cultural importance. A preliminary agreement guaranteed him and Frieda Fischer the curatorial leadership of a newly established museum.
However, after Fischer’s return from East Asia and during his appointment as a scientific adviser to the German legation in Beijing, Kiel’s financial situation deteriorated. By 1909, the planned museum project could no longer be realized, and Fischer formally released the city from the contract. Only at this point did Cologne emerge as a viable alternative.
Cologne was not a political capital, nor a colonial hub. Its significance lay elsewhere: in a civic culture open to private initiatives and in a municipal ambition to establish itself as a modern cultural city. Under these conditions, the Fischers’ project found institutional support and a sustainable framework.
Unlike many ethnological museums of the period, the Cologne museum was conceived as an art museum from the outset. Its focus was on aesthetics, craftsmanship, and historical continuity, not on evolutionary hierarchies or racial typologies. This distinction matters. It shaped acquisition strategies, exhibition design, and scholarly framing for decades to come.
The exhibition Expeditions makes this origin story actually tangible. By centering diaries and photographs, it reveals how the museum’s foundation was inseparable from travel, personal networks, and situated observation. At the same time, it does not romanticize these processes. The colonial context of Japan and Taiwan is made explicit, as are the asymmetries of power that enabled such collections in the first place.
The Museum of East Asian Art in Cologne is the result of a clearly traceable historical process: sustained travel-based collecting, detailed documentation, and the early decision to preserve a collection as an intellectual whole rather than dispersing it through sale. These elements shaped a museum whose structure and profile were defined early and remained remarkably stable over time.
Frieda and Adolf Fischer. Without their vision, commitment, and networks, the Museum of East Asian Art in Cologne would not exist today.
For Cologne and the wider Rhineland, this has a concrete implication. The region hosts a museum that stands alongside major institutions in Berlin, Paris, London, and beyond in its ability to present East Asian art with depth, continuity, and scholarly seriousness. The fact that such an institution is accessible here, outside the traditional former imperial centers, is neither self-evident nor trivial.
At the same time, the museum differs from larger national collections. Its strength lies not in monumental scale, but in focus, coherence, and an art-historical orientation that was established at a formative moment and consistently maintained. This gives the museum a distinct position within the European museum landscape I guess.
For Cologne today, the museum represents a lasting cultural asset: a place where East Asian art is not an occasional or auxiliary presence, but a permanent and well-founded part of the city’s cultural infrastructure.
Info: Later, in the 20th century, the museum’s standing and collections were further strengthened through major acquisitions and patronage, most prominently Hans-Wilhelm Siegel’s collection and the Oriental Endowment. I already wrote a post about that chapter of the museum’s history. That post complements the founders’ story told here.
Parallel to the exhibition Expeditions, the museum was also showing a solo exhibition of the Japanese artist Tanaka Ryōhei (1933–2019) titled From Line to Landscape. Tanaka is well known for his etchings and prints. In a follow-up post, I will write about his work and the exhibition.
Martin Parr in 2024. Source: Wikimedia Commonsꜛ (license: CC BY 2.0), photo by Raph_PHꜛ.
Born in Epsom, England, Martin Parr studied photography in Manchester and emerged in the 1970s and 1980s with a documentary approach that deliberately departed from the dominant traditions of humanist black-and-white photography. His early work was already attentive to social rituals and visual codes, as seen in Bad Weather (1982), but his public breakthrough came with The Last Resort: Photographs of New Brighton (1986), where saturated color, direct flash, and close proximity replaced distance and empathy with confrontation. This shift continued in The Cost of Living (1989) and Small World (1987–1994), which established many of the visual strategies Parr would become known for.
Throughout the 1990s and 2000s, Parr developed these themes further in a long series of photobooks that focused on consumption, tourism, and everyday excess, including Food (1995), Common Sense (1999), Think of England (2000), The Phone Book (2002), Mexico (2006), and Luxury (2009). Later projects such as Life’s a Beach (2012), We Love Britain! (2014), Grand Paris (2014), and Think of Scotland (2017) show how consistently he returned to similar motifs while adapting them to different cultural contexts. Alongside his own photographic work, Parr played an important institutional role, most notably as a long-standing member and later president of Magnum Photos, and as an editor, curator, and collector whose engagement with photobooks culminated in retrospective publications such as Early Works (2019).
Parr’s influence on photography is difficult to overstate. With projects such as The Last Resort and The Cost of Living, Martin Parr legitimized a visual language that many initially dismissed as vulgar, ironic, or even offensive. Saturated color, harsh flash, and a focus on seemingly trivial subject matter became tools for critical observation rather than aesthetic shortcomings. He demonstrated that documentary photography did not need to rely on distance, empathy, or heroic narratives of dignity and suffering. It could instead expose habits, contradictions, and discomforts embedded in everyday life.
This shift had lasting consequences. Parr opened the door for a generation of photographers who treated consumer culture, tourism, and leisure as serious documentary subjects rather than distractions from “real” social issues. His work in Small World and later in Common Sense showed how globalized behavior could be rendered legible through repetition, excess, and visual overload. Irony and ambivalence became acceptable, even central, elements of documentary practice, replacing moral certainty with tension and unease.
At the same time, Parr’s work provoked sustained debate. Critics accused him of condescension, of turning his subjects into caricatures, or of reinforcing class stereotypes. Supporters countered that his images function as mirrors rather than judgments, revealing structures of behavior rather than mocking individuals. This unresolved tension is part of his legacy. Parr made photography uncomfortable again, and in doing so, undeniably relevant.
When I began to take photography seriously myself, Martin Parr was one of the first photographers I oriented myself toward. I was drawn to his unorthodox approach and to the way he treated photography not as a neutral recording device, but as an active, sometimes abrasive form of observation. For quite some time, he functioned for me as a model for how photography could engage with everyday life without aesthetic distance.
Later, with growing experience and a changing perspective, I began to question aspects of his work. Some images felt intimidating, and at times it became difficult not to read them as making fun of their subjects. My interests shifted toward other photographers, and my own photographic practice moved in different directions. That shift, however, did not diminish Parr’s influence on me. My appreciation for his work remained, even as my relationship to it became more critical.
This becomes clear in the fact that I continued collecting his photobooks and followed each new series he published. First, Parr was not only a photographer, but also one of the great champions of the photobook as a medium. My own collection of his books has grown steadily over the years. And I liked that he himself supported the format consistently, which promoted many other photographers as well.
Second, Parr’s website is always fun to browse, as he adapted his visual language to the digital format in playful ways. No really! You should check it outꜛ! He always updated it with new projects, so it was easy to follow him even without social media accounts.
And third, I was also fortunate to see his work in exhibitions more than once, including an exhibition in Stockholm at Fotografiska in 2015 and a retrospective in Frankfurt at the Fotografie Forum Frankfurt in 2024. Seeing the work in physical space, at scale, reaffirmed both its power and its capacity to provoke.
Here are some photos I took during the exhibition at the Fotografie Forum Frankfurt in October 2024:
Fotografie Forum Frankfurt.
Martin Parr Exhibition at the Fotografie Forum Frankfurt (Sep 13, 2024, to Jan 5, 2025).
Martin Parr Exhibition at the Fotografie Forum Frankfurt (Sep 13, 2024, to Jan 5, 2025).
Martin Parr Exhibition at the Fotografie Forum Frankfurt (Sep 13, 2024, to Jan 5, 2025).
Martin Parr Exhibition at the Fotografie Forum Frankfurt (Sep 13, 2024, to Jan 5, 2025).
Martin Parr Exhibition at the Fotografie Forum Frankfurt (Sep 13, 2024, to Jan 5, 2025).
Martin Parr, Epsom station, Surrey, England, 1975.
Martin Parr, St Paul’s School, Darjeeling, India, 1984.
Martin Parr, Surrey Bird Club, Surrey, England, 1972.
Martin Parr, Trapnell’s Famous Racing Donkeys, England, 1972.
Martin Parr, Butlin’s Filey, North Yorkshire, England, 1972.
Martin Parr, St John’s Ambulance rooms, Sowerby Bridge Mouse Show, West Yorkshire, England, 1978.
Martin Parr, Rainbow Centre, The original Ballroom of Romance, Glenfarne, County Leitrim, Ireland, 1982.
Martin Parr, Lynotts Bar, Manorhamilton, County Leitrim, Ireland, 1983.
Martin Parr, Westport Horse Fair, County Mayo, Ireland, 1983.
Martin Parr, Puck Fair, Killorglin, County Kerry, Ireland, 1981.
Martin Parr, O’Connell Bridge, Dublin, Ireland, 1981.
Martin Parr, Union Hotel, Manchester, England, 1974.
Martin Parr, Moss Side, Manchester, England, 1972.
Martin Parr, Osmond Fan, Manchester, England, 1973.
Martin Parr, Watching the Queen at the Yorkshire Show, West Yorkshire, England, 1977.
Martin Parr, Prestwich Mental Hospital, Prestwich, Greater Manchester, England, 1972.
Martin Parr, Crimsworth Dean Methodist Chapel, England, 1977.
Martin Parr, Steep Lane Baptist Chapel buffet lunch, Sowerby, Calderdale, West Yorkshire, England, 1977.
Martin Parr, Mayor of Todmorden’s inaugural banquet, Todmorden, West Yorkshire, England, 1977.
Martin Parr, Halifax Rugby League Club ground, West Yorkshire, England, 1977.
Martin Parr, Washing hanging in the street Cornholme, West Yorkshire, England, 1975.
Martin Parr, Butchers shop, Mytholmroyd, West Yorkshire, England, 1977.
Martin Parr, Brimham Rocks, Harrogate, North Yorkshire, England, 1974.
Martin Parr, Halifax Town Football Ground, Halifax, Calderdale, West Yorkshire, England, 1975.
Martin Parr, Slaithwaite, West Yorkshire, England, 1980.
Martin Parr, Elland, West Yorkshire, England, 1978
Martin Parr, Wedding at Crimsworth Dean MethodistChapel, Hebden Bridge, Calderdale, West Yorkshire, England, 1977.
Martin Parr, Halifax Town football ground, West Yorkshire, England, 1977.
Martin Parr, Blackpool, England, 1970.
I think, with Martin Parr’s death, the world of photography has lost a figure who fundamentally altered its visual language. His work challenged conventions, irritated sensibilities, and expanded what documentary photography could look like and talk about. Whether one embraces or resists his images, their influence is undeniable and enduring.
Martin Parr Exhibition at the Fotografie Forum Frankfurt (Sep 13, 2024, to Jan 5, 2025).
My thoughts go to his family and those close to him. His photographs, books, and the debates they continue to spark will remain. In that sense, his presence in photography does not end here.
His photobooks (excerpt):
Gregory Crewdson Retrospektive, exhibited at the Kunstmuseum Bonn, Oct. 10, 2025 to Feb. 22, 2026.
The exhibition presents a comprehensive retrospective of Gregory Crewdson, covering his work from the 1980s to the present. More than 70 large-format photographs are shown, including key series such as Twilight and Beneath the Roses. Crewdson refers to his images as “single frame movies”, and the description fits well. Each photograph feels like a film scene paused at an unresolved moment. The situations are familiar yet unsettling, often set in small American towns, and marked by a quiet sense of dislocation, crisis, or suspension. Knowing that these images are produced through an elaborate, film-like process involving large crews, detailed set design, and carefully planned lighting adds another layer to how they are perceived.
Before entering the exhibition, I honestly expected that I would not like the work very much. The heavy staging and meticulous choreography sounded almost too controlled to me. I read about his months-long preparation behind each image, which only deepened this impression. Everything seemed calculated, composed, and tightly managed, which is something I don’t usually appreciate in photography.
Gregory Crewdson Retrospektive, exhibited at the Kunstmuseum Bonn, Oct. 10, 2025 to Feb. 22, 2026.
Inside the exhibition, however, two things completely changed my view. First, I found it surprisingly engaging to approach the photographs from very close range. I turned it into a small game: Starting near the surface of the image, I explored details, gestures, background scenes, and minor figures before stepping back. I was struck by how many small, self-contained stories are embedded within a single photograph. Piece by piece, these fragments accumulated. When I finally stepped back to take in the full image, it was almost hard to believe that all these individual narratives coexisted within one coherent frame. I ended up exploring nearly all photographs in the exhibition this way.
Gregory Crewdson Retrospektive, exhibited at the Kunstmuseum Bonn, Oct. 10, 2025 to Feb. 22, 2026.
Second, I was genuinely impressed by the quality of the prints. The resolution and technical precision were exceptional. The images were so detailed and finely rendered that this dense layering of small stories only became possible through the material quality of the photographs themselves. The prints invite close inspection and reward it. Without that level of technical excellence, much of what makes Crewdson’s work compelling would simply not be visible.
Gregory Crewdson Retrospektive, exhibited at the Kunstmuseum Bonn, Oct. 10, 2025 to Feb. 22, 2026.
In the end, the exhibition changed my expectations more than I had anticipated. What initially felt overly staged revealed itself as carefully constructed in service of narrative density. Crewdson’s photographs may be frozen moments, but they are far from static. They invite slow looking, close reading, and repeated shifts between detail and whole. After the shadow-based installations earlier that day, this felt like a different, but related, way of thinking about light, attention, and presence.
Here are some photos from the exhibition. Unfortunately, I did not note down the titles of the individual works, but I hope the images convey a sense of the exhibition’s atmosphere:
Gregory Crewdson Retrospektive, exhibited at the Kunstmuseum Bonn, Oct. 10, 2025 to Feb. 22, 2026.
Gregory Crewdson Retrospektive, exhibited at the Kunstmuseum Bonn, Oct. 10, 2025 to Feb. 22, 2026.
Gregory Crewdson Retrospektive, exhibited at the Kunstmuseum Bonn, Oct. 10, 2025 to Feb. 22, 2026.
Gregory Crewdson Retrospektive, exhibited at the Kunstmuseum Bonn, Oct. 10, 2025 to Feb. 22, 2026.
Gregory Crewdson Retrospektive, exhibited at the Kunstmuseum Bonn, Oct. 10, 2025 to Feb. 22, 2026.
Gregory Crewdson Retrospektive, exhibited at the Kunstmuseum Bonn, Oct. 10, 2025 to Feb. 22, 2026.
Gregory Crewdson Retrospektive, exhibited at the Kunstmuseum Bonn, Oct. 10, 2025 to Feb. 22, 2026.
Gregory Crewdson Retrospektive, exhibited at the Kunstmuseum Bonn, Oct. 10, 2025 to Feb. 22, 2026.
Gregory Crewdson Retrospektive, exhibited at the Kunstmuseum Bonn, Oct. 10, 2025 to Feb. 22, 2026.
Gregory Crewdson Retrospektive, exhibited at the Kunstmuseum Bonn, Oct. 10, 2025 to Feb. 22, 2026.
Gregory Crewdson Retrospektive, exhibited at the Kunstmuseum Bonn, Oct. 10, 2025 to Feb. 22, 2026.
Gregory Crewdson Retrospektive, exhibited at the Kunstmuseum Bonn, Oct. 10, 2025 to Feb. 22, 2026.
Gregory Crewdson Retrospektive, exhibited at the Kunstmuseum Bonn, Oct. 10, 2025 to Feb. 22, 2026.
Gregory Crewdson Retrospektive, exhibited at the Kunstmuseum Bonn, Oct. 10, 2025 to Feb. 22, 2026.
Gregory Crewdson Retrospektive, exhibited at the Kunstmuseum Bonn, Oct. 10, 2025 to Feb. 22, 2026.
Gregory Crewdson Retrospektive, exhibited at the Kunstmuseum Bonn, Oct. 10, 2025 to Feb. 22, 2026.
Gregory Crewdson Retrospektive, exhibited at the Kunstmuseum Bonn, Oct. 10, 2025 to Feb. 22, 2026.
Gregory Crewdson Retrospektive, exhibited at the Kunstmuseum Bonn, Oct. 10, 2025 to Feb. 22, 2026.
Gregory Crewdson Retrospektive, exhibited at the Kunstmuseum Bonn, Oct. 10, 2025 to Feb. 22, 2026.
Gregory Crewdson Retrospektive, exhibited at the Kunstmuseum Bonn, Oct. 10, 2025 to Feb. 22, 2026.
Gregory Crewdson Retrospektive, exhibited at the Kunstmuseum Bonn, Oct. 10, 2025 to Feb. 22, 2026.
Gregory Crewdson Retrospektive, exhibited at the Kunstmuseum Bonn, Oct. 10, 2025 to Feb. 22, 2026.
Gregory Crewdson Retrospektive, exhibited at the Kunstmuseum Bonn, Oct. 10, 2025 to Feb. 22, 2026.
Gregory Crewdson Retrospektive, exhibited at the Kunstmuseum Bonn, Oct. 10, 2025 to Feb. 22, 2026.
Gregory Crewdson Retrospektive, exhibited at the Kunstmuseum Bonn, Oct. 10, 2025 to Feb. 22, 2026.
Gregory Crewdson Retrospektive, exhibited at the Kunstmuseum Bonn, Oct. 10, 2025 to Feb. 22, 2026.
Gregory Crewdson Retrospektive, exhibited at the Kunstmuseum Bonn, Oct. 10, 2025 to Feb. 22, 2026.
Gregory Crewdson Retrospektive, exhibited at the Kunstmuseum Bonn, Oct. 10, 2025 to Feb. 22, 2026.
Gregory Crewdson Retrospektive, exhibited at the Kunstmuseum Bonn, Oct. 10, 2025 to Feb. 22, 2026.
Gregory Crewdson Retrospektive, exhibited at the Kunstmuseum Bonn, Oct. 10, 2025 to Feb. 22, 2026.
Gregory Crewdson Retrospektive, exhibited at the Kunstmuseum Bonn, Oct. 10, 2025 to Feb. 22, 2026.
Gregory Crewdson Retrospektive, exhibited at the Kunstmuseum Bonn, Oct. 10, 2025 to Feb. 22, 2026.
If you missed it, Gregory Crewdson’s retrospective at the Kunstmuseum Bonn is on display until February 22, 2026.
Photobooks (excerpt):
Kunstmuseum Bonn (main entrance).
What I liked most were the light–shadow interactions and the creativity of the installations. Many works used shadow in playful, surprising, or unsettling ways, sometimes as a sharply defined form, sometimes as something barely noticeable, sometimes as something that seemed to detach itself from its source. I found it enjoyable to simply move through the exhibition and let these visual situations unfold without trying to read them symbolically. Here are some photos from the visit.
Here are some impressions from the exhibition along with snaps from the other exhibitions that were on display at the same time. Unfortunately, I do not have information about all the artworks shown below:
Kunstmuseum Bonn, main entrance area.
Wall-installation in the entrance area.
Entrance into the exhibition From Dawn Till Dusk.
Part of the From Dawn Till Dusk exhibition.
Part of the From Dawn Till Dusk exhibition.
Claudio Parmiggiani, 1943 in Luzzare, lives in Parma, Autoritratto Come Ombra, Photogrephic emulsion on canvas. Part of the From Dawn Till Dusk exhibition.
Part of the From Dawn Till Dusk exhibition.
Part of the From Dawn Till Dusk exhibition.
Part of the From Dawn Till Dusk exhibition.
Christian Boltanski, 1944 in Paris - 2021 in Paris, Théâtre D’ombres, 1984, Dolls made of sheet metal, metal housing, projectors, fan, transformer. Part of the From Dawn Till Dusk exhibition.
Olafur Eliasson, 1967 in Copenhagen, lives in Berlin and Copenhagen, Your Uncertain Shadow (Growing), 2010, Halogen lamps, glass, aluminium, transformers. Part of the From Dawn Till Dusk exhibition. This actually me, standing in front of the installation. The installation creates a shadow that grows and shrinks as you move closer or farther from the light source.
Jenna Gribbon, 1978 in Knoxville, lives in New York, Me, a Lurker, 2020, Oil on canvas. Part of the From Dawn Till Dusk exhibition.
Jeff Wall, 1946 in Vancouver, lives in Vancouver, Passerby, 1996, Gelatine silver print. Part of the From Dawn Till Dusk exhibition.
Part of the From Dawn Till Dusk exhibition.
“The handshake”. Part of the From Dawn Till Dusk exhibition.
Thomas Demand, 1964 in München, lebt in Berlin und Los Angeles, Bathroom, 1997, C-print, Diasec, Ed. 2/5. Part of another exhibition at the Kunstmuseum Bonn.
Part of another exhibition at the Kunstmuseum Bonn.
A hallway in the museum.
Monika Baer, 1964 Freiburg, lebt in Berlin, Ohne Titel, Öl auf Leinwand. Part of another exhibition (the permanent one?) at the Kunstmuseum Bonn.
Part of another exhibition (the permanent one?) at the Kunstmuseum Bonn.
Part of another exhibition (the permanent one?) at the Kunstmuseum Bonn.
Rosemarie Trockel, 1952 Schwerte, lebt in Köln, Dear Lovely Colleges, 1982, Wolle, Plastik. Part of another exhibition (the permanent one?) at the Kunstmuseum Bonn.
Part of another exhibition (the permanent one?) at the Kunstmuseum Bonn.
Andreas Gefeller, 1970 in Düsseldorf, 005 and 045 (Aurora Urbanis), 2024, Inkjetprint auf Fine Art Paper. Part of another exhibition (the permanent one?) at the Kunstmuseum Bonn.
Part of another exhibition (the permanent one?) at the Kunstmuseum Bonn.
Part of another exhibition (the permanent one?) at the Kunstmuseum Bonn.
Norbert Schwontkowski, 1949 Bremen - 2013 Bremen, Ohne Titel, Öl, Pigment auf Leinwand. Part of another exhibition (the permanent one?) at the Kunstmuseum Bonn.
Adam Adach, 1962 Warschau, lebt in Paris, Wilk (Teil 1 und 2), 2007, Öl auf Leinwand. Part of another exhibition (the permanent one?) at the Kunstmuseum Bonn.
Adam Adach, 1962 Warschau, lebt in Paris, Vacant, 2004. Part of another exhibition (the permanent one?) at the Kunstmuseum Bonn.
Part of another exhibition at the Kunstmuseum Bonn.
Maximilian Kirmse, 1986 Berlin, lebt in Berlin, N.B.S. II, 2018, Öl auf Leinwand. Part of another exhibition (the permanent one?) at the Kunstmuseum Bonn.
Permanent exhibition of the Rhenish Collection.
Permanent exhibition of the Rhenish Collection (“Rheinische Sammlung”).
Franz M. Jansen, 1885 Köln - 1958 Büchel/Sieg-Kreis, Promenade 1925, Oil on canvas, mounted on cardboard. Part of the permanent exhibition of the Rhenish Collection.
August Macke, 1887 Meschede - 1914 Perthes-les-Hurlus, Gemüsefelder 1911, Oil on canvasmounted on plywood. Part of the permanent exhibition of the Rhenish Collection.
August Macke, 1887 Meschede - 1914 Perthes-les-Hurlus, Anni mit Walter 1912, Oil on canvas. Part of the permanent exhibition of the Rhenish Collection.
August Macke, 1887 Meschede - 1914 Perthes-les-Hurlus, Kinder im Garten (Marienkirche in Bonn), 1912, Oil on canvas. Part of the permanent exhibition of the Rhenish Collection.
I have a follow-up post about another exhibition I saw at the Kunstmuseum Bonn during the same visit: Gregory Crewdson Retrospektive.