Kaga Yuzen : Wakura-ba

Hello everyone, it's Sena.
Today, I continue to talk about Kaga Yuzen.

Have you ever hear the word "Wakura-ba" ?
Wakura-ba is described “虫食い葉” in Japanese.
This is one of the big feature of pattern of Kaga Yuzen.

Wakura means that bugs(虫） eat（食）.
Ha(Ba) means the leaf(葉）.
So Wakura-ba is “ leaves that are eaten by bugs”.

Kaga Yuzen are realistic patterns based on nature and classical motifs, mostly floral patterns.
One of the features of this realistic pattern is this " bug bite."
It is a technique of painting small hole-like dots on leaves and coloring them to look as if they have been eaten by insects.

I think that this expression makes the depiction of flowers and grasses more "natural".
I also feel the aesthetic sense of the artisans of the time in the way they took "natural beauty" rather than "perfect beauty" into their designs.