Summer's Shade

34" x 26"

In Haiku, the shortest poetic genre, the Kigo (a word that indicates the season) plays an extremely important role: It can incorporate several seasonal observations in fewer than five syllables!

For example, Ryokuin (a kigo for summer) means the shade that green trees create. It means cool air beneath the trees in a garden or a park, rather than dark shade in mountain depth. Essayist Yamamoto Kenkichi writes in his Haiku Anthology: “[It] signifies shadows that trees cast in the bright sunny spot in [an] early summer garden…. The sunbeams seep through the trees and display a beautiful tapestry woven in stripe in the air.”

On this canvas I tried to paint a cool, refreshing atmosphere of woods in early summer, as suggested by the above Kigo.

spread in the woods

tapestry of sunbeams…

summer’s shade