Plum orchard.

A plum orchard in blossom — the plum preceding the cherry as the first announcement of spring's arrival in Japan, its scent and form familiar from classical poetry — is Senpan's subject in this undated print, the mass of pale blossoms rendered with his characteristic directness. Plum orchards were subjects with deep cultural resonance, their association with classical poetry, with Kitano Tenmangu Shrine, and with the austere beauty that the Japanese aesthetic tradition found in the plum's winter blooming. Senpan brings to this loaded subject his usual preference for the concrete over the conventional.