Sunrise over Mongolia 1937

Fujishima Takeji made this landscape scene with pastel, laying down thin strokes of colour that softly blend. I think about him standing there, maybe early in the morning, squinting as the sun comes up, trying to capture the essence of that moment, the way the light feels. I'm imagining how the marks probably came intuitively and how the composition probably shifted as he laid down strokes of yellow, green, blue, and brown. See how the marks create a rhythm? The horizontal marks create a sense of endless expanse. I feel like the image is a metaphor for painting itself: a journey into the unknown, guided by intuition and feeling. It shows how artists are in an ongoing conversation and exchange of ideas across time, inspiring one another’s creativity. It invites us to embrace uncertainty.