Yozo Hamaguchi (1909-2000) was a Japanese printmaker who studied at the School of Fine Arts in Tokyo, which was run entirely on European lines and where traditional Japanese crafts were not taught. He then moved to Paris, and later to the United States. Despite the Eurocentric bias of his education and the fact that he chose to live and work in the West, his work retains an oriental quality, of mystical calm and simplicity. Hamaguchi is now celebrated for his mastery of the mezzotint technique - a form of engraving that gives rise to very dense and velvet-like areas of colour, becoming particularly emphasised where black or dark colour is used. His images are often ambivalent, with still-life subjects presented in such a way that they are open to a variety of interpretations - as in this image, which could also be a cat's eye, a fish in water, a canoe on a lake and so on.