Small Squares, Changing Colour

7 days ago

2 min read

Our Archive identifies this cup as a guinomi by Hayakawa Kei. In the photograph, yellow-green and red-orange areas divide its sides into panels. Fine crossing lines form small squares within those colours. Above the busy exterior, a pale pink interior is visible inside the opening. Let these different areas take turns holding your attention.

Archive photograph of a tapered cup with yellow-green and red-orange grid-patterned panels and a pale pink interior. — Archive photograph: crossing lines and colour panels around a cup with a pale pink interior.

1. Follow the small squares

Choose a short row near the upper front of the cup. Follow the spaces between the crossing lines, then look at a row lower down. Some squares are easier to pick out than others. Does your eye settle on an individual gap, or read the whole area as a colour? Try moving between those two distances of attention without deciding how the lines were made.

2. Find a colour boundary

Compare the front panel with a panel beside it. The red-orange and yellow-green areas meet at different heights, so a colour that sits near the rim in one place appears lower in another. Pick one boundary and trace it across the visible sides. Where does it become less clear? Notice how the colour blocks and the small squares offer different paths around the same outline.

3. Compare the opening and base

Archive photograph of the cup turned over, showing a red-orange base within a six-sided outline and patterned sides. — Archive photograph: the cup turned over, showing its red-orange base and six-sided outline.

The first photograph lets you glimpse a pale pink interior above the patterned sides. The second shows the cup turned over, with a red-orange base and a six-sided outline. Compare the corners in this view with the opening in the first. Which view makes a short straight edge more noticeable? Return to the gridded sides and see how the pattern meets the outline.

Finally, step back to the whole cup. Its sides narrow towards the base while the colour panels run downwards. Does the grid still catch your eye first, or has the opening become more noticeable? Keep one small detail in mind as you leave the image.