Flowers and Trees of the Twelve Months
Returned to lender
This work of art was on loan to the museum and has since been returned to its lender.On this pair of screens, fan-shaped compositions, each painted with a motif emblematic of one of the twelve months of the year, are scattered across a ground of two-toned golden mists. Gold accents and mottled ink (tarashikomi) bring to life stylized wisteria vines curling in the late spring sun; maple leaves falling into the swift current of a river in autumn; and touches of white shell pigment that cloak a wintry scene of black pine. The artist reached a high degree of abstraction in his depiction of summer corn, which appears at the center of the right-hand panel of the left-hand screen. He signed each of the paintings, and sealed six with a round seal, six with a square one. Like these screens, many of his paintings demonstrate the influence of Ogata Kōrin. However, the Osaka-based Hōchū also moved in Confucian literary circles, and took interest in Chinese-style literati painting (Nanga).
Artwork Details
- Title: Flowers and Trees of the Twelve Months
- Artist: Nakamura Hōchū (Japanese, died 1819)
- Period: Edo period (1615–1868)
- Date: ca. 1804–8
- Culture: Japan
- Medium: Twelve fans on a pair of two-panel folding screens; ink, color, and gold on paper
- Dimensions: Overall: 65 1/2 x 72 3/16 in. (166.4 x 183.4 cm)
- Classification: Screens
- Credit Line: Gitter-Yelen Collection
- Curatorial Department: Asian Art