Calm Spring

The comment of the novelist, the winner of the 1968 Nobel Prize in Literature, "If you don't paint Kyoto as it is now, it won't always be this way, so please paint it as it is now," greatly moved Kaii, and this led to his creation of his Four Seasons in Kyoto series. Calm Spring (No. 105) depicts the cherry trees in full bloom against the deep green of Takagamine. And three others. Pervasive Verdure (No. 106), with its depiction of the gardens of Shûgakuin Imperial Villa, its evergreen trees and deep green moss. Autumn Colors (No. 107), with its contrasting palette of autumn colors at Mt. Ogura. And the rooftops of Kyoto, as seen on a snowy last night of the year from the roof of the painter's favorite hotel in Kyoto, the Kyoto Hotel (present-day Kyoto Hotel Okura), in End of the Year (no. 104). These paintings of the four seasons in Kyoto are a particularly lyrical group of paintings. The so-called Kaii blue is especially lovely in End of the Year, as the sound of the gently falling snow reverberates with the distant tolling of the 108 strikes of Kyoto's temple bells on the last night of the year.