Discussion

Terminology

So far, the Japanese word ume has been used here for plum trees and blossoms, but there are a couple of more descriptive words for the blossoms that distinguish between white blossoms and the pink or red kinds. Plums with white blossoms are called (hakubai 白梅), and those with pink or red blossoms are called kōbai (紅梅). Last week's demonstration painting used hakubai as the model. This week's subject is kōbai.

Red and Pink Plum Blossoms

Last week, it was pointed out that Japanese plum blossoms (ume) come in a variety of colors including white, pink, and red, and that its flowers have five petals. Actually, ume blossoms can have multiple tiers of five petals each as the following photos show.

Though white ume blossoms are nice, red and pink blossoms certainly don't take second place, especially with Mt. Fuji (fuji san -- 山さん) in the background.

Katsushiku Hokusai (1760-1849), famous for his ukiyo-e series of 36 views of Mt. Fuji (there were actually 44), made a vast number of other paintings and woodblock prints, too. Here is one in which he combines both red and white plum blossoms in the same composition; a nighttime scene with the moon in the background.

Ogata Kōrin (1658-1716)

Historians recognize several schools of art or art movements in Japanese art history. One of the most noteworthy was the Rinpa school. It was not organized in the way that the Kanō and Tosa schools were. Instead, it consisted of generations of independent artists who admired and sometimes copied each other’s work and painting styles. For a long time, Ogata Kōrin was thought of as its founder (the name Rinpa is partly taken from a syllable of Kōrin's name), but modern historians give equal credit to Tawaraya Sōtatsu (1570-1640) and his partner, Hon'ami Kōetsu (1558-1637). Sōtatsu in particular was known for his decorative style, not surprising because he was a decorator and designer besides being a painter.

Kōrin came from a family that owned a prominent Kyoto dry goods business, the Kariganeya, which supplied textiles to Empress Tōfukumon’in (1607–­1678) and her court. As he grew up, he would have been strongly exposed to textile designs which explains why so much his artwork was easily adopted by the textile industry.

One of Kōrin's most famous works, byōbu (folding screens) titled Gods of Wind and Thunder, was a close copy of the same subject by Sōtatsu. (Japanese art should be "read" from right to left, the reason why the God of Wind comes first in the title.) Kōrin's version is shown below.

Several other artists over the centuries have made their own versions of Gods of Wind and Thunder including Hokusai.

A later painter, Sakai Hōitsu (1761-1829) was a major follower of Kōrin's and helped to further develop the Rinpa school's purely Japanese-style decorative art which contributed not only to painting but to all the crafts. One craft example is this lacquered box designed by Ogata Kōrin and produced by his brother, Kenzan Kōrin (1663–1743).

It depicts an area, an iris bog, called yatsu hashi (eight bridges), made famous by one of the greatest poems in Japanese literary history from Ise Monogatari, (Tales of Ise), written in the Heian Period (794-1185)

As one would expect because plum blossoms are a shikunshi subject, Kōrin produced several works featuring ume trees and blossoms. The picture below is a detail from Kōrin's Bamboo and Plum Blossoms byōbu.

Kōrin's way of painting plum blossoms influenced others. The picture below is a woodblock print from a book by Ōoka Shunboku (1680–1763) titled Ehon tekagami. In it, Shunboku demonstrates characteristic painting styles of famous artists. Kōrin's way of painting plum blossoms is imitated in Shunboku's book.

Kōrin's influence shows up in textiles, too. The picture below shows a lady wearing a kosode (literally a short-sleeved garment), a precursor of kimonos, that was worn by all classes. Note the plum blossom pattern woven into the fabric. This kind of pattern became known in the fashion industry as Kōrin plums. The kosode shown here would probably have only been worn by one of the upper classes.

Kōrin plums weren't the only designs of his that were used. Books of textile patterns adopted many of them. There were some in the 1730s that exclusively featured Kōrin patterns. The following two kosode patterns, both of Kōrin plums, came from such pattern catalogues for textiles (hinagata bon).

Hinagata bon featuring Korin patterns circulated widely, making him a very well known figure in his own day.