Meadow Trio 143

Meadow Trio 143 is part of Shimura's recurring meadow series, the title indicating three principal elements within the composition — likely three grouped forms, whether trees, plant clusters, or chromatic bands suggesting recession across an open field. Mokuhanga technique permits the clean, flat color separations typical of his work, with each pigment laid down through a separately carved block, and the meadow as subject lends itself to wide horizontal registers of bokashi gradation. The serial numbering indicates that this is one of many variations Shimura has cut on the same compositional armature, a working method shared with mid-twentieth-century Japanese print artists such as Saito Kiyoshi who also revisited consistent motifs across decades. Meadows form a thematic core of Shimura's output alongside woods and horizons, and the trio motif specifically gives the composition a triadic balance often used to anchor an otherwise level pictorial field. The work bridges his Tokyo training in compositional structure with the lyrical, pastoral landscape sensibility he developed in southern England.