Abundance of Spring in the Forest's Depths

Abundance of Spring in the Forest's Depths

This work was painted by Matsubayashi Keigetsu (1876–1963), a Southern School (Nanga) artist active from the mid-Meiji (1868–1912) to the mid-Showa era (1926–1989), when he was fifty years of age. The transition from Spring to early Summer is beautifully represented by old trees, bamboo, wisterias, azaleas, flocks of wild birds, and a quiet stream. The artist uses a combination of two techniques: One in which the subject is framed by outlines, and the inside is colored, and one in which the subject is not outlined but the ink and pigments are applied to the surface to express the form. The painting is a masterwork born from Keigetsu's unique sense of beauty, with a great sense of style and poetry achieved through his use of subtle shading with ink and thin layers of dye-based paints.（「The Modern Age」，2015）