Withered Leaf

A withered leaf — the leaf after summer's fullness has departed, its form preserved through desiccation but its color changed and its edges curled. The withered leaf was a subject that spoke to the Japanese aesthetic preoccupation with the beauty of decay and impermanence — the dried leaf as beautiful in its own way as the fresh green leaf of spring. Kimura's contemporary woodblock treatment likely renders the withered leaf with graphic precision, the irregular, contracted form of the dried leaf offering a different visual character than the smooth, open form of a fresh leaf.