Pine and cranes

Pine and cranes, dated around 1830-44 and held by the Art Institute of Chicago, is a color woodblock print by Katsushika Taito II that survives as a section of a harimaze sheet. The pairing of pine (matsu) and crane (tsuru) was among the most heavily freighted of all Japanese auspicious motifs: both symbolize longevity, and the combination was used at New Year, at weddings, and on objects intended as auspicious gifts. Taito II treats the subject with the Hokusai-school's confident graphic shorthand—the cranes' bodies described in clean, looping contours, the pine's needles rendered as massed strokes that read as decorative pattern from a short distance. The harimaze format ensured that auspicious images like this one could circulate at lower cost than full sheets, reaching a broad audience of buyers who pasted them into albums or onto folding screens. The image is one of several harimaze sections by Taito II in the Art Institute's collection, which together document his sustained engagement with the format through the 1830s and 1840s.