The artist has created a luxurious scene of the four seasons with a dense undergrowth of flowering plants and trees, which conceals not only additional flora, but also a pair...
The artist has created a luxurious scene of the four seasons with a dense undergrowth of flowering plants and trees, which conceals not only additional flora, but also a pair of quail and pheasants.
The spring flowers are wisteria, willow, thistle, kodamari, suzushiro, shakuyaku, and kobushi. The summer plants are represented by iris, lily, peony, an eggplant, mizuaoi, uri, and tsuyukusa. The autumn plants include bush clover, morning glory, gourds, and susuki, kikyō, keitō, nadeshiko, ominaeshi, kuzu. The sole winter plant is the pine. The autumn season is clearly favored, with the autumn flowers spread over both screens.
A favorite technique of Korin and Rimpa artists can be seen here, namely tarashikomi, a process of dripping ink of differing modality into ink and mineral pigments that have not yet dried, thus producing a mottled effect. In addition, the ink modalities are carefully varied in order to create a convincing sense of depth to the leafy undergrowth. There is clearly articulated layering of leaves, important in a work with this many leaves and flowers arranged on top of each other in a small space. The frame has the fine original hardware.