Anonymous and normal looking, a Japanese woman of uncertain age is captured in profile with her hand on her face and an expression that could denote vague thought, apprehension or absent-mindedness, but also surprise, as the title suggests. Standing looking at a palace, surprise could well have been her initial reaction.

The close-up of the head and upper torso absorbs almost all our attention – the woman is in a spacious open square, where a building in the distance and a vertical post closer to us frame the site without any great expressiveness, except for that of the partial enclosure of the space of the image.

Only one other human figure is visible: walking in the opposite direction, wearing a traditional outfit, they appear at the scale given by the distance, very small, and the spatial illusion leaves them stuck to the protagonist’s back, underlining, in their apparent walk, the momentary halt of the woman, who waits, recalls something, wonders, queries the route or is simply surprised or dreaming.

Leonor Nazaré
Curator at the CAM