Curatorial Narrative The anonymous Meiji-period Nihonga painter’s “Hurrah for the Imperial Army!” is a masterful exercise in restraint, its surface tension belied by the subtlety of its execution. Executed in fine brushwork that borders on the delicate, this still life of Japanese flags and imperial stamps assumes an almost fragile quality, as if the very materiality of the painting were being pulled taut against the demands of representation. The artist’s strategic deployment of monochromatic greys, whites, and blacks creates a chromatic structure that serves to amplify rather than distract from the object’s core subject matter – a studied arrangement of red flags and stamps that seem to tremble on the brink of animation. At 68×44 inches, “Hurrah for the Imperial Army!” assumes an imposing presence within the luxury interior environment, its spatial rhythm dictated by the deliberate balance between the flat expanse of monochromat