Pine Trees, Folding screen paintings in Tokyo National Museum, Japan
Pine Trees is a pair of screens at the Tokyo National Museum showing pines emerging from layers of mist. Each screen measures 156.8 by 356 centimeters and consists of wooden frames with paper and ink on plain backgrounds.
Hasegawa Tōhaku created this work around 1595 during the Momoyama period. The Japanese government declared both screens a National Treasure in 1952.
The two screens show pines in mist and use ink gradations to create depth and space without outlines or color. This technique follows the Zen tradition of reduction and lets the viewer experience the emptiness between the trees as part of the composition.
The screens are on view in the Japanese gallery at the museum, where lighting brings out the ink gradations. Visitors should allow time to observe the fine transitions and the effect of the paper from different angles.
Tōhaku used rough paper and straw brushes to develop a painting technique no one had employed this way before him. The work is considered the first large-scale painting to show only trees without additional landscape elements.
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