Ushibuse

Ushibuse, created in 1916, depicts a location in rural Japan whose name suggests a place associated with cattle and the agricultural landscape of the Japanese countryside. Unlike the famous scenic spots and urban centers that attracted most travel-oriented artists, Ushibuse represents the quieter Japan of farming villages, rice paddies, and the slow rhythms of agrarian life that persisted well into the twentieth century.

Bartlett's oban woodblock print records this rural scene with the plein-air sensitivity he developed through his European watercolor training. The Japanese countryside offered subjects of understated beauty: thatched farmhouses against a backdrop of low hills, water-filled rice fields reflecting the sky, and the particular quality of diffused light that characterizes the humid lowland landscapes of central Honshu. Bartlett's willingness to depict such everyday scenes alongside his more dramatic subjects, the Taj Mahal, the Khyber Pass, and the Golden Temple, speaks to his genuine interest in the full range of Asian visual experience.