Who created Two Trees in the Wind No. 3, Shôwa period, dated 1962?

Two Trees in the Wind No. 3, Shôwa period, dated 1962 was created by Kihei Sasajima (笹島喜平).

What does Two Trees in the Wind No. 3, Shôwa period, dated 1962 depict?

Two Trees in the Wind No. 3, Shôwa period, dated 1962 depicts trees.

Two Trees in the Wind No. 3, Shôwa period, dated 1962

by Kihei Sasajima

Sōsaku-hanga

Trees

Medium:: Woodblock print
Source:: Harvard Art Museum
Image courtesy of: Harvard Art Museum

Description

The "No. 3" designation indicates this print belongs to a series in which Sasajima explored a single motif across multiple iterations — a practice consistent with the [sosaku-hanga](/glossary/sosaku-hanga) commitment to personal artistic development through sustained engagement with a subject. Two trees under wind pressure present a dynamic formal problem: the bending of trunks and the lateral sweep of branches read as directional force against a static ground. Dated 1962, the same year as his Gundari Myōō print, this work suggests Sasajima in an expansive phase, moving between devotional imagery and pure natural observation. The tree forms likely echo the structural clarity he applied to architecture — each trunk a vertical element, the wind-bent crowns functioning as arcs that activate the pictorial field. Carved on [washi](/glossary/washi) through hand-applied [baren](/glossary/baren) pressure, the print's gestural quality would convey the energy of wind through the resistance inherent in the sosaku-hanga process itself.