Cherry Blossom under Misty Moon
朧月夜の桜
- Date:
- Taishō era
- Medium:
- Ink and light color on silk; hanging scroll
朧月夜の桜
Cherry Blossom under Misty Moon is a hanging-scroll painting by Konoshima Ōkoku in ink and light color on silk, held in the collection of the Tokyo National Museum. The composition pairs two of the most resonant subjects of classical Japanese painting and poetry: the spring cherry blossom and the misty moon (oborozuki), which together appear in countless waka and haikai poems as emblems of the fleeting beauty and gentle melancholy of late spring. Ōkoku draws the blossoms with the careful botanical observation he had absorbed from his Maruyama-Shijō training under Imao Keinen, while the misty moon is rendered with the kind of atmospheric ink-wash effects he had developed across his Bunten and Teiten career. The composition exemplifies his ability to apply the seasonal poetics of the kachō-e tradition to large-format painting subjects rather than to the small bird-and-flower plates of his teacher's printed albums, integrating classical literary references with the introspective, near-monochrome painting style that came to dominate his late career. The Tokyo National Museum has held the work as part of its collection of modern Japanese painting, where it represents a quieter strand of Taishō and Shōwa-era nihonga.
猫図
early 20th century
Ink on paper
駅路之春 左隻
1913
Ink and color on silk; folding screen
駅路之春 右隻
1913
Ink and color on silk; folding screen
驟雨 左隻
1907
Ink and color on silk; folding screen
Cherry Blossom under Misty Moon (朧月夜の桜) was created by Konoshima Ōkoku (木島桜谷) in Taishō era.
Cherry Blossom under Misty Moon depicts spring and moonlight.
