Hydrangeas and Butterfly

A companion to Taisui's standalone hydrangea print, this work adds a butterfly alighting on or hovering near the clustered blossoms. The pairing of flowers and insects is a foundational convention of the kacho-e genre, stretching back centuries through artists like Kitagawa Utamaro and Katsushika Hokusai. The butterfly introduces movement and narrative possibility into what would otherwise be a static botanical portrait: it suggests pollination, the passage of time within a single afternoon, and the fleeting intersection of two living things. Taisui rendered the butterfly's delicate wing patterns with fine carved lines, contrasting them against the massed, rounded forms of the hydrangea heads. The undated print was likely produced around the same period as the artist's other botanical works from 1929, given the shared subject matter and consistent woodblock technique.