Watermark Fine Art Photographs & Books (CLOSED) (Alan Griffiths, 7 November 2025) Jidai Baba, Ena Bunraku portrays an aged female puppet from Japan’s Bunraku theatre tradition, her timeworn face delicately carved to express both frailty and enduring wisdom. The “baba” or old woman role is one of Bunraku’s most poignant archetypes—figures of memory, loss, and generational continuity that carry deep emotional resonance within the stylized narratives of Edo-period drama. In this intimate photograph, the puppet’s cracked patina and fixed, faint smile are rendered with quiet dignity, the monochrome palette emphasizing the tactile grain of the wood and the folds of her robe. The photographer’s close focus transforms a theatrical artifact into a meditation on transience and performance, suggesting the way human feeling persists through artifice and age. The image becomes both portrait and elegy—an homage to the artisanship and spiritual depth of Bunraku’s storytelling tradition.
