Awaiting Manila

A Japanese soldier stands centrally beneath a large tree, holding a rifle across his body and wearing a light tan uniform with a cloth cap and field pack; several other soldiers rest and smoke beside him, and the front of a camouflage-patterned military vehicle with a star-marked grille occupies the left foreground. Behind them a flat expanse of scorched, rust-colored ground stretches toward smoke plumes rising against a pale, hazy sky, with a shattered tree stump at right. The palette is dominated by khaki, olive, and burnt orange tones, giving the scene a subdued, tense mood; painted by Manjirō Terauchi, "Awaiting Manila," 1943, oil on canvas.