Bamboo in Snow

衣錦尚綗 Wearing silk, yet displaying plain cloth. This is a noteworthy and unusual piece in Kodōjin’s corpus of work because the bamboo is painted in red ink, set against a background that is inconsistently washed with black ink. Bamboo was a frequent motif in Kodōjin’s oeuvre. At least six other paintings of bamboo are depicted with red ink, but this is the only one with a black background, hinting at a nocturnal scene.