Water Lily

Water lilies (suiren) float on the still surface of a pond or basin, their round leaves providing a compositional foil for the rising blooms. The water lily subject in Japanese decorative art carried associations with Buddhism — lotus flowers and water lilies shared symbolic territory in Buddhist iconography — as well as with the specific pleasure of the ornamental pond garden. Hodo's rendering likely uses the reflective surface of the water as a compositional element, the lily floating between the real bloom above and its reflected image below.