Cherry Trees and Kerria Roses 桜山吹図屏風さくらやまぶきずびょうぶ

Description

Tawaraya Sotatsu, active in the early 17th century in Kyoto, is known for the outstanding sense of design seen in this work.

This is a folding screen painting of mountains with white cherry trees and yellow kerria roses in full bloom. Several sheets of colored shikishi card are adhered to the screens, with each containing a Japanese waka poem. Various seasonal flowers are drawn on the cards using gold and silver paint. Written on them are poems by Hon'ami Koetsu, one of the three master calligraphers of the Kanei era. The mountain on the left-hand screen seems closer than the one of the right, but the cherry trees and kerria roses are all the same size, whether close or far away. This imbues the work with a fantastical air. The mountains are also painted flatly in a single uniform color, while the tree trunks sprout abruptly from the surface, as if sawed off half way and just placed there. This symbolic depiction of mountains and trees is topped off by the scattered arrangement of the poem cards, which seem to float in mid-air. All in all, this is a work bursting with a unique design aesthetic.