Ito Jakuchu: Birds, Animals, Flowers and Trees Screen

Ito Jakuchu's "Birds, Animals, Flowers and Trees" (a pair of six-panel folding screens) is a striking piece that is hard to forget. When viewed from a distance, this work features 29 species of animals and sacred beasts on the right panel and 46 species of birds on the left panel, all depicted in a unique way. On one panel alone, over 34,000 roughly 1-centimeter squares have been created, each with its own motif, and each square is then painted with different shades of color. Rather than simply filling each square with a single color, Jakuchu sometimes creates smaller squares within the squares, painting each in different shades to create a sense of depth, shadows, and curves, creating an astonishing and unprecedented technique. This visual book brings together the magical world of color in this, one of Jakuchu's most famous works.