Autumn Leaves

Across the pair of screens, branches of a tree in autumn color run horizontally through the upper half of the picture. The leaves are painted one by one in deep vermilion and crimson, and below them an ultramarine stream flows between white rocks. Ripples are drawn on the water with platinum paint (paint made by dissolving platinum powder in glue), glittering finely.

The colors are narrowed down to red and blue, and their contrast produces the brilliance of the picture. At the same time, there is variation in tempo in the form of the autumn branches and the curves of the stream, giving it a taut elegance that does not end as mere decorative pattern. Each screen is a large picture, 163.3 centimeters high and 361.0 centimeters wide.

Yokoyama Taikan was a Japanese-style painter from Ibaraki Prefecture who studied under Okakura Tenshin and others as a member of the first class at the Tokyo School of Fine Arts. He joined in founding the Japan Art Institute in 1898 and led its revival in 1914. This screen was painted in 1931, when Taikan was in his sixties, and is regarded as an especially resplendent work among his oeuvre.

The Adachi Museum of Art, which holds it, was opened by Adachi Zenko, a businessman from Yasugi, Shimane Prefecture. Zenko was strongly drawn to Taikan's work and gathered more than 120 pieces. This is one of the central works of that collection.