Flowers and Grasses of the Four Seasons

Unlike the more traditional Four Seasons paintings, which often feature birds, this pair of screens is birdless. Instead, delicately rendered insects—including dragonflies, butterflies, and a praying mantis—hover among kerria roses, peonies, chrysanthemums, bush clover, pampas grass and other autumn grasses, and snow-dusted lantern plants. Tall grasses sway in the foreground, while distant hills emerge between scallop-edged gold clouds, creating patterns that lend the composition a sense of movement. The refined treatment of these motifs reflects the gentle, elegant style associated with Kano Mitsunobu, whose paintings adorned Kyoto’s palaces and temples. The screens also closely parallel the lacquered maki-e panels of Toyotomi Hideyoshi’s mausoleum at Kyoto’s Kōdaiji Temple, which likewise feature autumn grasses and favor insects over birds. These shared motifs suggest a close artistic relationship between the Kano painting style and contemporaneous Kyoto decorative arts.