Birds and Flowers of the Twelve Months 十二ヶ月花鳥図屏風じゅうにかげつかちょうずびょうぶ

Description

These screens visually depict poems about birds and flowers of the twelve months by the medieval poet Fujiwara no Teika (1162–1241). The poems were considered essential knowledge for aristocrats and samurai lords at that time.

This is a set of two six-panel folding screens. The 12 panels are decorated with a variety of flowers and birds, with cherry blossoms, wisteria, chrysanthemums and other flowers blooming in tandem with the changing seasons.

The work was painted in the 17th century, during the Edo period, but it is based on a set of 24 waka poems by Fujiwara no Teika, a poet who lived during the early Kamakura period, from the 12th to the 13th centuries, with each poem representing a flower or bird of the twelve months. Teika's poems formed an indispensable part of the education of nobles and samurai lords, with the poems also inspiring the creation of numerous paintings and crafts. This painting presents the poems in visual form.

A flower and bird from each month are displayed on each panel, with January represented by a willow and bush warbler and February by a cherry blossom and a pheasant. The 12 panels form one contiguous scene ranging from right to left. Though other folding-screen paintings also depict motifs from the 12 months, these usually feature different paintings on each panel. This work is quite unique in the way it depicts one overarching landscape. With its seasonal birds, flowers, moons and sun, the painting seems to perfectly encapsulate the entire world in one unbroken scene. As such, it speaks volumes about the compositional powers of the artist Kano Eikei.