Untitled
1813
ink
From the collection of Metropolitan Museum of Art
1813
ink
From the collection of Metropolitan Museum of Art
You see a small, square print of a smoking pipe resting on a dark cloth. This is a *surimono*—a fancy Japanese print made for private gifts, not shops. The artist packed the background with tiny, crisscrossing lines (cross-hatching) to make the paper look like woven silk. The pipe itself is just an everyday object, but the care in those lines turns it into something quiet and special. If you like how the lines play with light, look up cross-hatching.
