Oak Tree in St. Louis

"Oak Tree in St. Louis" — ink on paper, Showa period — is a landscape subject from Munakata's American travels: a specific tree in a specific city, encountered and recorded with the direct attention he brought to all subjects regardless of their geographic or cultural location. The American oak would have been a new tree for Munakata — different from the oaks he knew in Japan, its form shaped by a different climate and soil — and his rendering would capture both the individual tree's character and the general quality of treeness that he found compelling in any species.