The Third Month 1909 - 1910

Kamisaka Sekka created this image, called 'The Third Month', without providing a date of creation. I see two figures cloaked and hatted walking through an abstracted landscape in a limited palette of beige, pink, blue and white. I wonder about the artist and what he was thinking about as he rendered the patterns on the robes, so carefully articulated, and the white blossoms that might have taken hours. Is the artist simply recording what is in front of him, or is he more interested in the geometry of the shapes and the way these play against one another? Maybe Sekka found a way to sit with the feeling of spring, not just paint what it looks like, but how it feels. It reminds me of Morandi. There's a softness to it, a gentle refusal to turn things into objects. It is a quiet painting and the artist gives us permission to slow down.