Description
This work uses shades of ink to depict orchids blooming in the lee of a rock. Orchids are commonly featured in Chinese literati painting together with bamboo and plum blossoms.
They are fragrant flowers, and were used as a metaphor for people with excellent natural virtues. The literati were particularly fond of the motif of orchids blooming in obscurity behind mountain rocks.
Gyokuen Bonpo served as chief priest at Kyoto’s Kenninji and Nanzen-ji temples. He admired the literati way of life and was a master orchid painter. The unconstrained, vigorous beauty of the ink lines lends the painting a charm distinct from works by professional painters.
In China, scholar-artists known as [wenren] frequently painted orchids as symbols of virtue. The creator of this orchid painting, Gyokuen Bonpō (1348–after 1420), was a prominent Japanese Zen monk who adopted the lifestyle of a Chinese scholar-artist. He became famous for his flowing renditions of this delicate flower.
Data source
ColBase
"ColBase: Integrated Collections Database of the National Institutes for Cultural Heritage, Japan" is a service that enables a multi-database search of the collections in the four national museums (To...
Contents holder/Provider
Aggregator
National Institutes for Cultural Heritage
The National Institutes for Cultural Heritage (NICH) comprise four National Museums (Tokyo National Museum, Kyoto National Museum, Nara National Museum, and Kyushu National Museum) and two National Research Institutes for Cultural Properties (Tokyo National Research Institute for Cultural Properties, and Nara National Research Institute for Cultural Properties), as well as the International Research Centre for Intangible Cultural Heritage in the Asia-Pacific Region (IRCI) in Sakai City, for a total of seven institutions.
Last updated
July 20, 2026