February — 其二 観梅

"February" (其二 観梅 — "the second, plum blossom viewing") from 1898 depicts the February tradition of kanme — observing the first plum blossoms, which opened earlier than cherry blossoms and were celebrated as the harbingers of spring's approach. The plum blossom viewing was a more literary and scholarly tradition than the popular hanami of cherry blossoms, associated with Chinese poetry and the refined pleasures of the educated class. Shuntei renders the occasion with the appropriate quality of restrained appreciation: the plum blossoms elegant and spare against the late winter sky.