Grasshopper and Butterfly

A grasshopper and butterfly depicted together in a composition from the 1920s that draws on the Japanese tradition of insect study prints. Both insects are associated with summer in Japanese poetic tradition — the grasshopper (kirigirisu or batta) with the dry grasses of late summer, the butterfly with flowering meadows — and their pairing creates a study in contrasting form: the angular, camouflaged grasshopper against the symmetrical, colorful butterfly. Urushibara handles such natural history subjects with the same precision he brings to architectural views.