Musashi Plains [left of a pair]

Below golden clouds, a silver moon sinks into an autumn meadow. A brook, glowing gold in the moonlight, trickles in and meanders through a profusion of grasses and flowers. Deep blue and white bellflowers, asters, chrysanthemums, even an orange lily left over from summer, punctuate a sea of swaying Miscanthus grass. The long, narrow composition of this pair of screens, shorter than usual height but extending over twelve feet, emphasizes the grassland’s vastness. An old Japanese folk song helps identify this extraordinary place: “The Musashi plains / have no mountain / into which the moon may set—/ it rises from the grass and sets in the grass.” Although today the Musashi Plains north of Tokyo have disappeared beneath a sea of roads and apartment buildings, four hundred years ago they were a magical flatland of grasses and flowers, an uncommon sight in a country dominated by mountains.