Discussion

Today's subject, Spring Landscape, haru no fūkeiga, is nothing more than a landscape painting featuring elements that identify it as a springtime setting. Those elements can be anything associated with spring but are most often flowering plants that bloom during that season. Since our painting subject before the spring break was sakura, a particular kind of cherry tree, I thought that this week I would still use cherry trees in bloom but focus on a different kind of cherry tree, shidare-zakura, a cherry tree with branches that droop or are pendulous like those of a weeping willow.

Today's subject, Spring Landscape, haru no fūkeiga, is nothing more than a landscape painting featuring elements that identify it as a springtime setting. Those elements can be anything associated with spring but are most often flowering plants that bloom during that season. Since our painting subject before the spring break was sakura, a particular kind of cherry tree, I thought that this week I would still use cherry trees in bloom but focus on a different kind of cherry tree, shidare-zakura, a cherry tree with branches that droop or are pendulous like those of a weeping willow.

The serrate leaves of shidare-zakura can be seen in the photo above, They are bronze colored when they first emerge, turn emerald green in the summer, and drop in the fall leaving the trunk bare.

Viewing cherry trees in bloom is a favorite Japanese pastime.

Family picnics under the blossoms is a fun thing to do, too.

Here are a few other pictures of shidare-zakura.

The following picture is a good model for a spring landscape painting.

Landscapes with seasonal themes have long been favorite subjects for Japanese painters. The spring landscape painting below is by Tosa Mitsuoki (1617-1691).

Tosa Mitsuoki became the head of the Edokoro, the official Bureau of Painting in the imperial court in Kyōto. His work incorporated elements of brushwork and delineation from the Kano school which in turn had been influenced by Chinese Ming dynasty (1368 - 1644) paintings. Elements of simplified designs and innovative compositions characteristic of the emergent Rinpa school can also be seen. In essence, cross fertilization was going on between all of Japan's major schools of art.

This painting is a part of a long hand scroll (e-maki) that depicts all four of the seasons. E-maki are read from right to left with this scene being the right-most portion. The other segments depict summer, fall, and winter.