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

This screen places a willow with fresh green leaves and a Japanese cypress covered with snow on each side and depicts ten or more different kinds of flowering plants and sixty or more small birds in large sizes in the foreground to show the shift of the four seasons. In the background scenery, which is framed by a pine grove, fishermen who draw a net ashore and bake salt and a group of samurai in hunting suits can be seen. This work combines traditional motifs in Japanese painting: birds and flowers of the four seasons. Mica is applied to the entire picture, and small gold leaves are applied in thick layers for the clouds and sparsely for the ground; it is a highly decorative screen.