Birds and Fish

About a dozen small birds—dark green-black heads and wings, white cheek patches, and pale speckled breast markings—perch and fly among a dense crisscrossing lattice of pale, bare branches set against a deep blue ground that lightens toward the upper right. Most of the birds cluster in the lower two-thirds of the composition in tight groups of two and three, while two more appear mid-flight with wings spread near the upper left. The artist's signature and a red seal sit in the lower left corner, with printed Japanese characters and the numerals "1965" beneath the image; the work is a woodblock print by Shiro Kasamatsu titled Birds and Fish.