Folding Screen The Bamboo River c. 1915 - 1940

Ogyu Tensen made this folding screen, The Bamboo River, out of ink and colour on paper. You can almost feel the artist unfurling the screen to begin, the paper yielding to each brushstroke, a dance of intuition and intention. I wonder, was Tensen thinking of other artists as they worked? Maybe dreaming of the gentle curve of a bamboo stem, trying to capture its essence in a line? Or perhaps they were lost in the sheer physicality of the ink, its dark viscosity contrasting with the paper's delicate surface. The white blossom is like a punctuation mark, a pause in the narrative of the painting, while the strokes of green bamboo are like musical notes, a rhythm played out across the panels. There’s a sense of exchange, a conversation across time, and medium. Each artist builds on the ones who came before, constantly remixing and reimagining. This work feels like a personal expression, a space for ambiguity and endless possibility.