Flowering Plum and Birds
梅花小禽図
by Mori Kansai
- Date:
- 1873
- Medium:
- Album leaf; ink and color on silk
梅花小禽図
by Mori Kansai
Flowering Plum and Birds is a leaf from the 1873 Mori Kansai album in the Rhode Island School of Design Museum (accession 2001.16K). The plum (ume) is, in classical Japanese terms, the flower of early spring, blossoming before the cherry on bare branches against winter air, and is associated with poetic endurance and with the scholar's virtues in the Chinese painting tradition that the Mori-Kishi school had absorbed. Kansai pairs the plum branch with small birds — characteristically observed in posture and feathering, in the Mori-Kishi naturalist manner — set against the album silk. A companion leaf (2001.16L) carries a related composition. Signed and dated 1873, the leaf belongs to the substantial corpus of Kansai bird-and-flower work that places him in a continuous line with the kachō-e practice of his Maruyama-Shijō contemporaries in Kyoto.
朝妻舟図摺物
mid-19th century
Woodblock print diptych (surimono); ink and color on paper with metallic pigments
能効藥種
circa 1847–1852
Woodblock-printed book illustration; ink and color on paper
波貝図
1873
Album leaf; ink and color on silk
桜花鳥図
1873
Album leaf; ink and color on silk
Flowering Plum and Birds (梅花小禽図) was created by Mori Kansai (森寛斎) in 1873.
Flowering Plum and Birds depicts birds & flowers.
