just a bird on a vine

http://hdl.handle.net/10934/RM0001.COLLECT.46008  image courtesy the rijksmuseum (PD)

Here's Utagawa Hiroshige, the master known for the "100 Views of Edo" of 1848 on, with a look at a smaller world entirely: a woodcut dated round 1833-7, known at the Rijksmuseum as "Vogel en blauwe winde" (Bird on a blue bindweed).  Though known for his landscapes, Hiroshige was also lauded for his birds and flowers, and you see why.  This gray fellow has a typically alert face, but with a comic quirk to his beak, an interrogating look:  what, buddy?  I also love the smooth oval of his body.  So much bird, so little gesture to create him.