The Lingering Summer

Nishijima's treatment of late summer — the season when intense heat persists even as daylight shortens — likely emphasizes the flat, bleached quality of afternoon light on old building materials and the heavy stillness of air before evening. In traditional Japanese architecture, lingering summer is felt in the deep shadow under extended eaves, in the wilting of roadside vegetation, and in the particular tonal weight of sun-faded wood and tile. Technically, such a composition would call for warm, high-value pigments blended through graduated bokashi to convey radiant heat, with minimal atmospheric perspective keeping the image close and enveloping. The title situates the print in a literary tradition of seasonal observation closely associated with haiku's autumn-approaching sensibility.