A Garden in Okayama on a Spring Morning

Korakuen in Okayama — one of Japan's three great landscape gardens, originally completed in 1700 — provides the setting for this 1933 spring morning composition. Cherry blossoms and plum may still cling to the garden's carefully composed ponds and lawns as morning mist softens distant hills and the outlines of Okayama Castle. Yoshida's handling of spring's diffuse early light, with its particular softness before the sun burns through, demonstrates his unmatched ability to translate the quality of a specific hour into woodblock color.