Discussion

Cockscomb Plants

Cockscomb is the common name for more than one plant. Keitō is the Japanese name for the variety I am basing my demonstration painting on this week. It is currently named Celosia argentea var. cristata, but it was previously known as Celosia cristata.

This coxcomb is a crested variety of Celosia argentea (without the var.cristata appended to its name). That plant is also commonly called a coxcomb but is known in Japan as umōgeitō). They are all members of the amaranth family. Umōgeitō is shown below for comparison.

"Crested" refers to the flattened, ribbon-like, or contorted ridges that give the plant the appearance of folded brain tissue. Here is a close-up view of the ridges, a genetic feature of keitō.

Keitō are annuals that grow from tiny seeds; as many as 43,000 in an ounce. They can be sown in the late spring. Maturing in the summer, blossoms can last from 8 to 10 weeks. Plants can grow to one foot, and blossoms can be red, yellow, pink, or orange. Keitō blossoms and leaves are edible; young stalks, too. Nutritionally, they are much like spinach. In some places, particularly parts of Africa, keitō is a primary food source.

In 1767, Thomas Jefferson wrote of flowers he had planted at Monticello that, based on his description of them, were probably keitō. Some are still there today.

Praying Mantis

I decided to include a praying mantis in my demonstration painting this week. Yes, praying mantis females eat their husbands after copulation.

They are common in many parts of the world including right here in San Diego. Just two weeks ago, we had one that was three inches long crawling up one of our screen doors. My husband saw one in Vietnam that was eight to ten inches long, perched on the sweater of a Vietnamese woman; a sort of pet. She saw it as a good luck symbol.

Mantises get their name from the way they often hold their forelegs up in what looks like a praying position similar to the mantis in the iron, gold, and silver incense burner seen below, made sometime in the 19th century. Such novelties were popular in the export market.

Artwork

Tawaraya Sōtatsu (1570 – 1640)

Sōtatsu is generally considered to be the first Rinpa School artist. Rather than a school in the formal sense, the Rinpa School was a group of artists spread out over time who admired each other's works and the techniques they used. Sōtatsu was best known for decorations of calligraphic works by his partner Hon'ami Kōetsu (1558–1637) and for several remarkable byōbu he painted. Sōtatsu was the first to use a technique called tarashikomi, the application of drops of paint onto a still wet, previously painted surface, creating a mottled appearance as of moss on a tree trunk. The byōbu below, Maize and Cockscomb, is noteworthy for featuring maize, a plant not native to Japan. In spite of Japan being closed to the west, some western influences leaked through.

Miyazaki Yūzen (1654-1736)

Miyazaki was primarily a fan painter who eventually moved to painting extremely popular fan-shaped designs on kosode, an early form of kimono. He developed a technique he called yūzen-zome, a form of resist dying using rice paste. Eventually called just yūzen, it is a technique similar to tie-dying. Many of his designs were published in a book titled Yuzen-hiinagata in 1688. He did other paintings, too, as shown by his Dragonfly, Coxcomb and Bamboo below. It appeared in a book published after his death in 1762.

Ohara Koson (1877-1945)

Many of Koson's paintings were kachō-ga (birds and flowers) prints. Koson was a prominent shin-hanga artist; one who worked to restore traditional Japanese subjects and painting techniques to Japanese art. It is uncertain when the painting below was done, but it was printed in 1932.