Tabi Sox or Foot Fetish

Miyoko Ito 

1974  
Oil on canvas  
39 x 29 inches

A Surrealist painting—often thought of as dream-like—of soft, light-colored gradients that shift from warm to cool, separated by geometric and curvilinear forms. The bottom third of the painting is light blue, moss green, and light yellow smoothly blended in horizontal brushstrokes to a light gray-brown, undisturbed by other shapes. A line, shifting from light brown to green, separates the top two-thirds from the bottom of the composition. Above the line, shapes appear to jut out from an obtuse "V" shaped beam that extends to the left and right canvas edges and balances on a bright red fulcrum-like shape to the viewer's left. A vertical beam with a gradient of light brown to light green divides a similarly colored gradient on the left from a light blue-to-tan gradient on the right. A box at the top center alludes to a window with a thin brown border filled with a light blue shape.