Flowers of Spring and Autumn

Other than the artists of woodblock prints, Ogata Kōrin (1658–1716) is perhaps the Japanese artist best known in the West as well as in Japan, and his work reflects a truly indigenous taste. Prolific and versatile, Kōrin painted in many different styles and formats, frequently taking as his subject themes derived from classical literature. His compositions are characterized by bold, brilliantly colored abstract patterns, and his work epitomizes what came to be known as the Rinpa school. While other artists working in this style preceded him, it was his name (specifically, the last part) that was adopted to denote the entire group; "Rinpa" means "school of Rin." Kōrin's popularity was so great that only a century after his death, Tani Bunchō (cat. no. 168) warned against forgeries of his work.[1] In the nineteenth century two of his followers, Saikai Hōitsu (cat.no. 134) and Ikeda Koson (cat. nos. 136, 137), attempted to establish an authenticated oeuvre.[2]

A group of materials known as the Konishi Documents, which includes family papers, personal correspondence, diaries, sketches from life, and copies of old paintings, provides insights into the artist's personal life.[3] Preserved by the Konishi family, whose ancestors had adopted Kōrin's son, they are now divided between the Osaka Municipal Museum of Art and a private collection in Tokyo.

The successive heads of the Ogata family—active patrons of the arts and themselves trained in painting and the classics—made and sold kimonos in their shop Kariganeya and typified the cultivated businessmen-gentlemen of the capital. Kōrin's father, Ogata Sōken (1621–1687), was an accomplished painter and calligrapher as well as a wealthy, well-connected businessman,[4] and his influence on Kōrin's early artistic career may have been greater than is generally acknowledged.

Kōrin is widely believed to have studied painting with the minor Kano artist Yamamoto Sōken (d. 1706). His happy, if somewhat irresponsible, youth ended abruptly with his father's death, in 1687. Even before this, the family business had suffered severe losses in patronage as wealth shifted from the old aristocracy to the emerging middle-class merchants, and Kōrin, now in serious financial difficulty, was forced to find a new means of supporting himself.

About 1692, perhaps as an attempt to improve his situation, Kōrin changed the written form of his name, preserving the old pronunciation but adopting a new set of Chinese characters that may be interpreted to mean "shining gems." He kept this form for the rest of his life, and it appears as his signature on many paintings. Kōrin began his professional career as a painter by decorating pottery made by his younger brother Kenzan (1663–1743), who established a kiln in 1699 at Narutaki, northwest of Kyoto. Together they created some of the most beautiful pottery of the Edo period. Soon afterward, Kōrin's paintings began to gain recognition, and in 1701 he was granted the title hokkyō, an honor reserved for artists of unusual distinction. Attracted by the more affiuent clientele in the bustling city of Edo, Kōrin went there at least twice, in 1704–5 and again in 1707–9. He spent his last years in the congenial company of the waning court aristocracy of Kyoto.

Very few of Kōrin's works are known from before 1701, the year he received the honorific hokkyō. What is most characteristic of his extant work is its urbane sophistication and charm. His dramatic compositions also reveal a knowledge of textile designs and techniques. At the basis of Kōrin's art is a deep admiration for the aesthetic ideals of the early Rinpa masters Kōetsu and Sōtatsu (cat. nos. 83–87), to whom he was distantly related. He once owned a lacquer box by Kōetsu and a screen painting by Sōtatsu, and he made copies after Sōtatsu's designs. One could say that the aesthetic aspirations of the two earlier masters culminate in the classical narrative paintings of Kōrin.

Flowers of Spring and Autumn combines two aspects of Kōrin's art-decorative paintings of flowers and ink paintings after Chinese subjects. On the panel at the right is the single motif of white plum blossoms, harbinger of spring. The small flowers stand out against the fine-grained wood and stark branches of the leafless tree. In the lower right corner are Kōrin's signature, "Hokkyō Kōrin," and his round seal, "Koresuke." The same seal without the signature appears on the companion panel, which depicts flowers and grasses of late summer and early autumn: morning glories, pampas grasses, white and blue bellflowers, and exuberant white, pink, and red chrysanthemums.

Both panels are slightly bowed. Contemporary paintings of room interiors (fig. 51, page 310) sometimes include similar panels that are shown hanging against the curved posts that often served to set off tokonoma (alcoves). Although the Burke panels are too wide to have been displayed side by side against a single pillar, they may have been displayed on adjoining sides.

The handling of the brush and the sharp brushline in the signature resemble the signature on his pre-hokkyō works. Furthermore, the "Koresuke" seal was used on works dating to shortly after he was granted the title in 1701. The panels may therefore be dated to just after 1701.

[Miyeko Murase 2000, Bridge of Dreams]

[1] Bunchō gadan, in Sakazaki Shizuka 1917, p. 799.
[2] Sakai Hōitsu 1815; and Ikeda Koson 1864.
[3] On Kōrin's life, see Yamane Yuzō 1962a.
[4] The second-generation head of the Ogata family, Dōhaku, was married to Kōetsu's sister; Kōrin's grandfather, Sōhaku, lived near Kōetsu at Takagamine.

Marking: Seal: Koresuke

Mary and Jackson Burke Foundation , New York (until 2015; donated to MMA)

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Seattle Art Museum. "Japanese Art: Selections from the Mary and Jackson Burke Collection," March 10–May 1, 1977.

Minneapolis Institute of Arts. "Japanese Art: Selections from the Mary and Jackson Burke Collection," June 1–July 17, 1977.

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Ishikawa Prefectural Museum. "Nihon bijutsu meihin ten: nyūyōku bāku korekushon," July 13, 1985–August 11, 1985.

Nagoya City Art Museum. "Nihon bijutsu meihin ten: nyūyōku bāku korekushon," August 17, 1985–September 23, 1985.

Atami. MOA Museum of Art. "Nihon bijutsu meihin ten: nyūyōku bāku korekushon," September 29, 1985–October 27, 1985.

Hamamatsu City Museum of Art. "Nihon bijutsu meihin ten: nyūyōku bāku korekushon," November 12, 1985–December 1, 1985.

New York. Asia Society. "Art of Japan: Selections from the Burke Collection, pts. I and II," October 2, 1986–February 22, 1987.

Schirn Kunsthalle Frankfurt. "Die Kunst des Alten Japan: Meisterwerke aus der Mary and Jackson Burke Collection," September 16, 1990–November 18, 1990.

New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "Masterpieces of Japanese Art from The Mary Griggs Burke Collection," March 30–June 25, 2000.

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New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "Japan: A History of Style," March 8, 2021–April 24, 2022.

Murase, Miyeko, Il Kim, Shi-yee Liu, Gratia Williams Nakahashi, Stephanie Wada, Soyoung Lee, and David Sensabaugh. Art Through a Lifetime: The Mary Griggs Burke Collection. Vol. 1, Japanese Paintings, Printed Works, Calligraphy. [New York]: Mary and Jackson Burke Foundation, [2013], p. 155, cat. no. 183.