Hanging Gourd Vine (Descriptive Title)
- Medium:
- Woodblock print
- Format:
- Oban
- Source:
- Honolulu Museum of Art
Description
A hanging gourd vine depicted in Kyosai's characteristic ink style, the plant's tendrils curling across the composition in the elegant disarray of natural growth. Gourds carried auspicious associations in Japanese and Chinese culture — their rounded forms suggesting abundance, their proliferous growth suggesting fertility and good fortune — and gourd motifs appear in Japanese decorative art from the Heian period onward. Kyosai's botanical subjects reveal a side of his talent usually overshadowed by his demons and warriors: patient, sensuous observation of the natural world.
More Prints by Kawanabe Kyosai
Tenpôzan in Osaka: Viewing Children's Sumo (Naniwa Tenpôzan kodomo sumô shôran), from the series Scenes of Famous Places along the Tôkaidô Road (Tôkaidô meisho fûkei), also known as the Processional Tôkaidô (Gyôretsu Tôkaidô), here called Tôkaidô
1863
Woodblock print
Kyosai, Royal Academy, London, FREE DOMESTIC SHIPPING
2022
Original Museum Lithographic Exhibition Poster
from the series One Hundred Pictures by Kyôsai (Kyôsai hyakuzu)
Woodblock print
Gontazaka, from the series Scenes of Famous Places along the Tôkaidô Road (Tôkaidô meisho fûkei), also known as the Processional Tôkaidô (Gyôretsu Tôkaidô), here called Tôkaidô meisho no uchi
Woodblock print
More Food & Drink Prints
Frequently Asked Questions
Hanging Gourd Vine (Descriptive Title) was created by Kawanabe Kyosai (河鍋暁斎).
Hanging Gourd Vine (Descriptive Title) depicts food & drink.