Rain in Green Season

"Green season" refers to the Japanese rainy season of June and early July, when fresh foliage is at its densest and persistent rain saturates the landscape. The print likely depicts rain falling against or through summer leaves, treated through the tonal range of aquatint rather than the linear summer-rain conventions of traditional woodblock. Takeda's intaglio approach allows for the differentiated grayscale needed to register both the wetness of leaves and the fine vertical traces of rain itself — typically achieved through delicate hard-ground etched lines drawn over a graduated aquatint ground. The chine-collé support contributes a faint luminosity that suggests the diffuse light of an overcast afternoon. The subject relates her practice to a traditional Japanese seasonal sensibility while remaining firmly within her contemporary intaglio idiom. Like much of her work from this period, the print belongs to a small edition, typically of thirty impressions, printed by the artist herself from copperplate.