Fallen Leaves

Scattered leaves lie across a surface in this 1942 painting by Komura Settai, a work in a medium distinct from his more widely known woodblock prints. The fallen leaves evoke mono no aware, the Japanese aesthetic of bittersweet awareness of impermanence, a theme that runs through centuries of Japanese art and literature. Settai was a trained painter as well as a printmaker and illustrator, and his paintings reveal a looser, more spontaneous hand than his precisely designed prints. Created during wartime, when woodblock production was constrained by material shortages, this painting may reflect Settai's turn toward more direct media. The composition's simplicity belies its emotional resonance, each leaf a small emblem of seasonal passage.