Autumn of Ginkgo

Autumn of Ginkgo focuses on the icho tree, whose fan-shaped leaves turn a saturated yellow before falling in dense carpets that briefly cover roads and temple grounds. Ohtsu's print likely composes the subject around a single mature ginkgo or a stand of trees, possibly within a temple precinct where the species is traditionally planted as a fire-resistant boundary marker. The technical challenge of the subject lies in the yellow itself: ginkgo's color is notably uniform and chromatically pure, requiring careful pigment selection — likely a layered application of yellow ochre and a brighter chromatic yellow — and clean registration to keep the leaves crisp against trunk and sky. [Bokashi](/glossary/bokashi) may be used at the canopy's edges to soften the silhouette. Within Ohtsu's autumn group, Autumn of Ginkgo serves as a chromatic counterpart to scenes dominated by red maples, broadening his record of how the season is experienced across different trees and settings in rural and temple Japan.