[Audio Guide]
A woman looks out at the countryside and the calm sea that spreads out beyond it from a garden on a high terrace. Her kimono with its red design draws our gaze from amid this view, which is unobstructed until the horizon line. This appears to be an everyday situation for this woman, as her ensemble is unpretentious—her obi is tied loosely in a butterfly knot and her black hair is bound at the nape of her neck. Whatever she is thinking, and whatever she is looking at, we cannot see the her expression. If we match our gaze to hers, our line of sight is also directed into the interior of the painting. Kyujin’s own words about this work remain: “It is fair to say that this is a work of fanciful imagination where a Koganei garden has been combined with the landscape of Izu for the first time.” The atmosphere created by the combination of these two extant sites was perhaps something of a utopia for this artist, and full of lyrical feeling.
