Pine Trees

The ink-on-paper work depicts a view of Japanese pine trees in the mist, with parts of the trees visible and parts obscured, illustrating the Zen Buddhist concept of ma and evoking the Japanese wabi aesthetic of rustic simplicity. They are said to be the first paintings of their scale to depict only trees as subject matter, although a white shape to the upper right of the left panel might suggest a background mountain peak. Each screen measures 156.8 x.

It is recorded as the work of Hasegawa Tōhaku. Materials recorded for it are wood, ink and paper. The recorded method of making is ink wash painting. Recorded constituent parts are Pine Trees. It is associated with Japan. The record gives 1600 as its date of establishment or first appearance. It is associated with Hasegawa school. Recorded genres are ink wash painting and byōbu-e. It is recorded in the collection of Tokyo National Museum.

The screens are made of a relatively rough silk or paper medium, and form twelve panels consisting of six joined pieces of paper. Tōhaku used a straw brush to achieve the scale required of the screens. Some aspects of the screen's construction suggest that the piece may have been a preparatory work: the top and bottom pieces of joined paper on each screen are half the typical size used for screens; the sizes of paper used in each screen are slightly different, and the joins between the sheets are not completely regular. The seals for the artist's names, "Hasegawa" and "Tōhaku", do not use the usual forms. The trees on the far right of the right panel are cropped, suggesting that the order of the panels may have been altered or that some may have been replaced.

The work is a development of made with Chinese ink, using dark and light shades on a silk or paper medium. It combines naturalistic Chinese ideas of ink painting by Muqi Fachang with themes from the Japanese yamato-e landscape tradition, influenced by the "splashed ink" works of Sesshū Tōyō. The painting makes use of the intended foldings of the screen in use to create perspective, with branches directed towards or away from the viewer. Though the paintings are based in Chinese ideas of ink painting, monochrome ink-wash paintings on such a large scale was a Japanese innovation never seen in China; here Tōhaku used a straw brush on relatively coarse paper to achieve the right brush effects on a large scale.

Pine Trees is recorded as made of wood, ink and paper. Associated with Japan. Recorded from 1600.