Oharame (Woman Peddlers from Ohara)

Three Oharame in white head towels, indigo kimono and aprons rest with their legs stretched out on grass dotted with small yellow flowers. Their hats are set down in the foreground, and behind them white-walled houses and a flowering tree appear, with mountains and sky beyond. On a nearly square canvas more than two meters on each side, the figures and landscape are arranged with composure.

The figures are composed with thin lines and flat areas of color, and indigo and white are placed repeatedly against the green of the grass, creating rhythm in the picture. The vertical lines of the tree trunks divide the picture and link the figures in front with the village scene behind. The faces and hands are outlined with fine lines and the skin is painted flat in pale color, achieving both a weighty sense of volume and a calm expression.

Bakusen founded the Kokuga Sosaku Kyokai with Murakami Kagaku and others in 1918, and from 1921 spent about a year and a half in Europe studying Western painting. This large work was shown at the sixth Kokuga Sosaku Kyokai exhibition in 1927, and the National Museum of Modern Art, Kyoto, also holds a drawing of an Oharame. The museum purchased this work in fiscal 1973.