Kitagawa Sōsetsu was one of Tawaraya Sōtatsu's top pupils. He used the same "I'nen" seal as Sōtatsu and another of his pupils, Tawaraya Sōsetsu, and he may have served as the head of the Sōtatsu studio after the death of his master. He is believed to have worked in the Kanazawa region in the mid-to-late seventeenth century. Yet judging from the range of brush styles of surviving works from this period, there must have been at least a handful of other artists permitted to use the seals closely associated with the Sōtatsu studio. The stock-in-trade of the artists who used the "I'nen" seal at this time were lavishly painted screens of trees, plants, or flowers, as seen here. As with all Rinpa vegetal motifs, there is a balance between stylization and naturalism. The plants are identifiable but reflect a decorative intent, for they seem completely detached from any real landscape.
