Jean Mallard's signature technique involves applying watercolors almost like oil glazes, layering colors from light to dark in a slow, meticulous process to achieve incredibly vivid colors and smooth gradients.
The Tale of the Bamboo Cutter tells of an elderly bamboo cutter who discovers a tiny, radiant girl inside a glowing stalk of bamboo. He and his wife raise her as their own daughter, naming her Kaguya-hime. As she grows, she becomes extraordinarily beautiful, attracting suitors from across the land. Five noblemen seek her hand in marriage, but she tests them by assigning each an impossible task-such as retrieving the Buddha's stone begging bowl or the jewelled branch of Mount Hōrai. Each suitor fails.