Bamboo Trees in Summer
- Medium:
- Mokuhanga (Japanese woodblock)
- Image courtesy of
- Hanga Ten
A view into a bamboo grove (take-yabu) at the height of the warm season, when the canes are at their most vivid green and the canopy filters sunlight into vertical patterns of light and shadow. Bamboo is a demanding subject for the woodblock medium — the long, straight stems require precise key-block carving, and the layered foliage typically demands multiple impressions of green to suggest depth between the foreground and the deeper shaded interior of the grove. Ohtsu would likely have used [bokashi](/glossary/bokashi) gradations along the canes to model their cylindrical form and to suggest dappled summer light. Bamboo groves are a recurring motif in the Japanese landscape tradition, associated with rural shrines, village edges, and the quiet hinterland between farmland and forest. Within Ohtsu's body of work, this print belongs to his summer cycle alongside images of rice paddies and mountain greenery — compositions that celebrate the dense, humid lushness of the Japanese countryside in its most fully foliated months.
Bamboo Trees in Summer was created by Kazuyuki Ohtsu (大津一幸).
Bamboo Trees in Summer depicts trees and summer.
