Wisterias in the Mountain (2)

The numbered title indicates this is a second variation on a wisteria-in-mountain subject, suggesting Ohtsu returned to the motif to explore a different vantage, palette, or season. The composition likely centers on cascading wisteria racemes — pendant clusters of pale violet or white flowers — set against the deeper greens of mountain foliage, with the flower trusses given the most saturated chromatic weight. Wisteria prints in the Japanese tradition pose particular technical challenges: the long, drooping racemes require precise registration across multiple color blocks and benefit from [bokashi](/glossary/bokashi) shading at the petal tips to suggest the gradation from bud to fully opened bloom. Ohtsu's mountain context places the flowers in habitat rather than as cut specimens, an approach closer to [meisho-e](/glossary/meisho-e) than to courtly [kacho-e](/glossary/kacho-e). Within his body of work, the print sits alongside his cherry, plum, and camellia subjects as part of a sustained engagement with named flowering plants of the Japanese countryside.