Chrysanthemums

Chrysanthemums is a 1775 woodblock print by Isoda Koryusai, one of several kacho-e in which the Edo bijin-ga master turned to the most prestigious autumn flower in the Japanese seasonal calendar. The chrysanthemum, kiku, carried an unusual weight of associations: imperial emblem, symbol of longevity through the Chrysanthemum Festival held on the ninth day of the ninth month, and a flower so admired by classical Chinese poets that any image of it inevitably gestured toward literati culture. Koryusai composes the print as a study of multiple bloom forms, with the spider-like rays of one variety set against the dense fluted petals of another, the leaves curling around them in calligraphic strokes that betray his samurai training in brushwork. The palette would have been dominated by the yellows, whites, and dark greens characteristic of mid-1770s nishiki-e, with careful gradation distinguishing the upper from the lower surfaces of each leaf. The print belongs to the broader botanical tradition Koryusai pursued in parallel with his celebrated bijin-ga, and audiences who collected his Yoshiwara fashion plates of Hinagata Wakana no Hatsu Moyo also collected his flower studies, treating both genres as expressions of the same eye. The chrysanthemum's reputation as a flower of refined sensibility lent the image a quietly elevated tone, even when produced for the popular market. The Art Institute of Chicago preserves this impression among its Koryusai holdings.