Misty Rain and Fallen Leaves － Left

After it was shown in the 1905 Konoshima Ōkoku Painted Folding Screen Exhibition held at Kyoto Gyoen Garden , the whereabouts of this work remained unknown for 110 years. Now that it has been rediscovered, for a long time to come, it will continue to delight viewers. In the screen on the right, the blooming wisteria clearly indicates the period of late spring to early summer. A male and female deer walk through misty rain. Behind them, an innocent fawn has stopped and turned its face toward the viewer. In front of the fawn is a large twisted trunk of wisteria. Drawn decisively after loading a brush with thin ink and then dipping the tip into thick ink, using this tsukitate technique, the artist has been able to convey shading with each single stroke. By contrast, the late autumn scene in the left-hand screen is of a wintry wind blowing in the mountains. As it scatters the few remaining leaves, for the forest animals, this strong, cold wind seems to signal the nearness of winter. Was the monkey , while climbing on a rock, taken aback on hearing the swish of leaves plucked by the wind ? Did this abrupt message stop the monkey in its tracks and cause it to tilt its head up and back to heed the warning? Richly endowed with Ōkoku's hallmark style of painting, both screens, one showing flat land and the other a mountain slope, exhibit a great sense of depth.