Iris No 41 — 花菖蒲 No 41

The forty-first iris in Sugiura Kazutoshi's numbered series shows the hana-shōbu in a densely packed arrangement where multiple blooms overlap and jostle for compositional space — a departure from the more isolated single-flower treatments that characterize some entries. This crowded approach intensifies the chromatic effect of Sugiura's layered printing, as petals of slightly different hues advance and recede against one another. The gold-leaf application in this composition functions less as a background field and more as a punctuation within the floral mass itself.