Iris No 97 — 花菖蒲 No 97

Positioned roughly at the midpoint of Sugiura Kazutoshi's iris series, this ninety-seventh composition shows a mastery of the compositional problem the series poses: how to depict the same flower, again and again, without repetition. The answer lies in variation of angle, season, light condition, and color temperature — the irises in the later numbers of the series grow progressively more abstract, their botanical specificity dissolving into pure chromatic form. No. 97 occupies an interesting middle position, still clearly representational yet with an increasing interest in the expressive potential of the flower's shape.