Rice Field with Toki

The toki, or Japanese crested ibis (Nipponia nippon), is a critically endangered bird whose reintroduction on Sado Island has made flooded rice paddies its habitat once again. Morimura's print depicts the bird against the geometric grid of a rural rice field, likely at spring planting or autumn harvest, with mountain backdrops and seedling rows providing additional patterned registers. The toki's pale pink plumage and distinctive curved beak receive careful rendering against the deep green or mirror-water surface of the paddy. The composition belongs to Morimura's wider engagement with Japanese rural landscape and seasonal agricultural labor, drawing on the kacho-e tradition of bird-and-flower compositions while updating it with contemporary environmental resonance. The toki, once extirpated from the Japanese mainland, appears here as both a living species and a marker of continuity with traditional agricultural Japan, consistent with the artist's documentary attention to surviving cultural landscapes.