Finishing Touches by Mortimer Menpes. 1901. Watercolor. Source: Japan: A Record in Colour, facing p. 168. Menpes was fascinated by every stage of the craftsman's process, He seems to have longered to watch and sketch in many different workrooms. The only mention in the text of "finishing touches" comes in connection with dyeing: "Dyeing is also an art that is brought to a high degree of perfection in Japan. Sometimes an elaborate design will need such a large number of plates and colours, as well as finishing touches by the hand of the operator, that in the end it looks almost like a water-colour, so closely do the colours mingle one with another" (176). The craftsmen bend over their work, utterly absorbed in it, as the artist sketches them. — Jacqueline Banerjee
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Bibliography
Menpes, Dorothy. Japan: A Record in Colour. London: Adam & Charles Black, 1901. Internet Archive version of a copy in the University of California Libraries. Web. 4 July 2019.
Created 5 July 2019