Quails and Bush Clover

Quails (uzura) and bush clover (hagi) — one of the most traditional pairings in Japanese bird-and-flower imagery — create a composition rooted in the autumn aesthetic of wabi simplicity. The quail, with its earth-toned plumage and compact form, nests among the arching, delicate stems of the hagi, a combination celebrated in poetry from the Man'yoshu onward. Kotozuka brings to this classical pairing his characteristic attentiveness to the natural world outside his more typical architectural subjects.