A raised platform is the pretext for setting in motion nine young women and a little boy come to enjoy the outdoors in the last fine days. In the distance a flight of geese goes by; in the foreground, in lower right, a woods of butterfly-shaped leafage, ranging from red to purple, can be identified as lespedeza, or hagi. Those two symbols evoke autumn. The pines, omnipresent in the landscape, also allude to it.
Last, the hagi refers to the poetry of Basho (1644-1694), grand master of the haiku, who makes it the sign of karumi, lightness – “like a deep river whose bed of fine sand we can see”.
Lantern, tea, and shamisen - a string instrument – are readied for a last happiness of day as night is about to fall.
The delicate palette, dominated by yellow and the precious Carthamus red, with the minute description of the fabrics, complete the refinement of the composition.
