SHIRAKABA L (white birch L)

White birch (Betula platyphylla var. japonica) is a recurring subject in Fujita's oeuvre and one to which he returned across numerous titled series. The pale, lenticellate bark of the shirakaba trunk — rendered in near-white against darker forest backgrounds — provides the high-contrast, vertically oriented composition that suited his reductive approach to mokuhanga. The L designation marks this as a late or variant state in the series. Fujita likely built the pale trunks from multiple light-value impressions on washi, allowing the paper's natural warmth to contribute to the bark's luminosity. The surrounding forest would be suggested through layered tone fields rather than individually articulated foliage.