The Empty Tea-house by Mortimer Menpes. 1901. Watercolor. Source: Japan: A Record in Colour, facing p. 32. Another "blond" summer painting, which captures the quality of Japan in the "hot season" so well — and also the way that places like this seem exactly right in their surroundings. Menpes writes, "Nothing disturbs in a Japanese landscape. It is the harmonic combination of untouched naturalness and high artistic cultivation. The tea-houses owe much of their charm to the absence of paint. The benches, lintels, the posts, are uncoloured, except by age" (111). Perhaps it is afternoon here, and people are resting, but they will soon want to take refreshment in the traditional way. — Jacqueline Banerjee
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Bibliography
Menpes, Dorothy. Japan: A Record in Colour. London: Adam & Charles Black, 1901. Internet Archive version of a copy in the University of California Libraries. Web. 21 June 2019.
Created 22 June 2019