The Japanese plum blossom: Ume

The plum blossom is the fourth of the four shikunshi painting subjects (The Four Gentlemen) of classical Chinese and Japanese art covered this semester. The tree (Prunus mume in Latin but ume in Japanese) is not the plum familiar to Americans, though it is related to it and even more closely to apricot trees. It grows in east and southeast Asia. For a long time, it was the most popular tree in Japan for its flowers before being replaced by cherry trees.

Ume is a deciduous tree that can flower as early as January, but more typically flowers in February and into March, associating it with with the winter season. Though a winter plant, it is often referred to as a harbinger of spring. Its five petaled blossoms are varying shades of white, pink, and red and have a strong fragrant scent. Leaves appear after the petals fall. The ume fruit ripens around June and July at the same time as the East Asian rainy season occurs, known as the meiyu (plum rain 梅雨).

Ume trees grow to be from 13 to 33 feet tall. The flowers are typically ¾ to 1 inch in diameter. One blossom grows from each bud. Leaves tend to have a reddish hue, though some varieties are green. The fruit is sour tasting and is usually processed before being eaten. A popular form is umeboshi (梅干) or pickled plum which is often eaten with rice. A sweet alcoholic beverage called umeshu is also made from the fruit.

Umeboshi

One of Japan's national treasures is a pair of bi-fold byōbu painted by Ogata Kōrin (1797-1858), one of the founders of the Rinpa school of Japanese art, titled Red and White Plum Blossoms. If they look familiar, it is because we saw these paintings this summer in a lesson about waves.

The background color was achieved with gold leaf glued onto a backing. Pigments were applied on top. The petals of the blossoms were done without outlines; i.e. mokkotsu-hō. This technique was relatively new at the time, and Kōrin's use of it was widely imitated afterward. The mottled appearance of the tree trunks and branches was achieved with a technique called tarashikomi, the application of colored pigments on top of a base layer before it has had a chance to dry. Tarashikomi works best on paper with a liberal amount of sizing.

If anyone would like to see Kōrin's Red and White Plum Blossom byōbus in person, they are going on public display starting this coming Friday, December 4 through Sunday December 13. The catch is that it is at the MOA Museum of Art in the city of Atami in Shizuoka Province, Japan. Good luck.

When ukiyo-e (Japanese woodblock prints) first made their appearance as wrapping paper protecting prized Japanese ceramics imported into Europe in the late 19th century, they strongly influenced French Impressionist painters, among them Vincent Van Gogh. One of the prints impressed him so much, Utagawa Hiroshige's (1797-1858) Plum Blossoms, that he painted his own version in oil. The pair are shown together below. Hiroshige's print is on the left and Van Gogh's painting is on the right.

The scene, The Plum Blossom Garden at Kameido (the Kameido Tenjin Shrine), is part of Hiroshige's 100 Famous Views of Edo, done relatively late in his life.