National Treasures & Important Cultural Properties
of National Institutes for Cultural Heritage, Japan

Judging from the discontinuity of the composition and the difference in techniques used, it is considered that the right and left parts of this screen were originally parts of two different screens and they were combined after each one had lost its own counterpart.
　The one on your right depicts wild cherry blossoms in full bloom in the center, a mountain stream and its abundant flow of water at the lower reaches, willows at the foot of a bridge and the golden sun over the mountains. This seems to be a motif considering Yoshino and Uji. The composition is so dynamic, forming a striking contrast to the left part that has a serene atmosphere. Clouds are created with torn and cut gold and silver leaf and sunago (a type of gold leaf cut into small pieces like grains of sand) or by roughly spreading silver noge (a type of silver leaf cut into long thin strips) while the cherry petals and the parapet of the bridge are created by building up layers of white pigment.
On the other hand, the left part of the screen depicts the turn of the seasons from fall to winter by placing the silver crescent moon and very formalized water streams in the center, ears of rice and Japanese pampas grass on the right and post-harvest fields and snowcapped mounds of earth on the left. As is the case with the right part of the screen, the left part has the ground covered with mica powder and most of the clouds and mounds of earth are created by applying gold or silver leaf.
The sophisticated composition and elaborate depiction method found in the left part seems to suggest that this screen was created by a painter of the Tosa school after the mid-16th century. It can be estimated that the right part, which has a style clearly different from that of the left, was created in the early 16th century.