Hotaru Gari- Firefly Hunting

"Firefly Hunting" (蛍狩り, Hotaru Gari) depicts one of the most poetically resonant summer leisure activities in the Japanese calendar: the evening pursuit of fireflies in grassy riverside areas, where the insects' cold light created a magical natural spectacle celebrated in poetry from the Manyoshu onward. Shuntei renders the firefly-hunting scene with its characteristic combination of darkness and points of light — the darkening summer evening, the figures moving through the grass, the fireflies as floating sources of cold illumination. The subject's literary resonance enriched its visual appeal.