hint one The elements in this painting are more than decoration. A message is hidden in plain sight within the composition. Look closely at the lanterns in the bamboo garden. Their placement may be more deliberate than it first appears.
Lantern Garden's
message
hint two Sometimes a message becomes clearer when the whole is broken into parts. Try dividing the painting into two halves — top and bottom — and four sections from left to right.
Within each section, the presence or absence of a lantern begins to form a pattern. These patterns correspond to characters from a tactile writing system.
The lanterns represent the raised dots of Braille, a tactile writing system used by visually impaired readers.
Each section corresponds to one Braille character. A lantern marks the position of a raised dot, while an empty space represents the absence of one.
panel one Reading the patterns from left to right reveals the hidden message:
TAKE NO KO
The Japanese phrase take no ko means “bamboo shoot.”
panel two Reading the patterns from left to right reveals the hidden message:
HIKARI E
In Japanese, hikari e means “toward the light.”
Together with the first panel, Take no ko (“bamboo shoot”), the two paintings form a single idea: A bamboo shoot growing toward the light