Spring of a Main Road (Umayaji no Haru), right screen
駅路之春 右隻
- Date:
- 1913
- Medium:
- Ink and color on silk; folding screen
駅路之春 右隻
Spring of a Main Road (駅路之春, Umayaji no Haru), the right screen of the pair of six-panel folding screens dated 1913, carries the figure subject that gives the composition its title: a traveler on horseback paused at a spring roadside, with attendants and travelers' gear distributed across the panels, suggesting a momentary stop on a journey through the flowering landscape. Konoshima Ōkoku draws the horse and figures with the close anatomical observation he had cultivated since his Keinen apprenticeship, paying particular attention to the rider's posture, the carriage of the horse's head, and the precise rendering of the harness and travel equipment. The right screen of the pair carried the dramatic interest of the composition, and contemporary critics at the 1913 Bunten remarked on the unusual sense of pause and stillness Ōkoku achieved by isolating the figure group against the receding landscape of the left screen. Now in the Fukuda Art Museum in Kyoto, the pair counts among the iconic works of Taishō nihonga and is one of the central holdings of the museum's modern Japanese painting collection.
Spring of a Main Road (Umayaji no Haru), right screen (駅路之春 右隻) was created by Konoshima Ōkoku (木島桜谷) in 1913.
Spring of a Main Road (Umayaji no Haru), right screen depicts spring.
