Spring at Chomei Temple

Spring at Chomei Temple renders the ancient temple — associated with the thirteenth-century Buddhist monk and writer Kamo no Chomei, who retreated to a small hut and wrote his famous "Hojoki" (Account of My Hut) — in the full flowering of spring. The temple's association with Chomei's radical simplicity and his meditation on impermanence gave the spring blossoms an additional layer of meaning: the cherry and plum flowers that announced spring were exactly the kind of transient beauty that Chomei's writing had explored. Hagiwara's treatment connects the spring subject to its literary and philosophical heritage.