Artwork Page for Flowers and Grasses

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Flowers and Grasses

花草図屏風

mid-1600s

Kitagawa Sōsetsu 喜多川相説

(Japanese, active 1639–50)
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Culture
Japan, Edo period (1615–1868)
Medium
Pair of six-panel folding screens; ink and color on paper
Measurements
Image: 153.7 x 329.2 cm (60 1/2 x 129 5/8 in.)
Credit Line
Leonard C. Hanna Jr. Fund 1968.193
Public Domain
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Location
Not on view
Print

Description

Kitagawa Sōsetsu painted for the Maeda family, powerful rulers of what is present-day Ishikawa Prefecture on the central northern coast of Honshū, Japan’s main island. Screens served as room dividers and backdrops in Maeda grand residences. This composition is considered one of the artist’s masterpieces. Kitagawa Sōsetsu is thought to have been a student of Tawaraya Sōsetsu, who was in turn the student of Tawaraya Sōtatsu the Kyoto-based master painter regarded as the creator of the style that came to be known as Rinpa. By selecting a painter of this lineage, the Maeda family consciously connected their aesthetics to those of the imperial capital as a means of proclaiming their elevated status.
Two horizontal six-panel folding screens feature seasonal flora in ink and color against gold backgrounds. On the top screen, peonies cluster behind a bamboo fence, followed by upright poppies and hollyhocks, and leafy shrubs. Below, the second screen shows dense mounds of red and white chrysanthemums transitioning into tall grasses and small blossoms. Fine, tapering brushwork defines the frilled petals and layered leaves across the twelve vertically oriented panels.

Flowers and Grasses

mid-1600s

Kitagawa Sōsetsu

(Japanese, active 1639–50)
Japan, Edo period (1615–1868)

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