The Orchid

A kacho-e (花鳥絵, "flower-and-bird picture") of a single orchid plant. The orchid is one of the shikunshi or "Four Gentlemen" — alongside plum, bamboo, and chrysanthemum — a quartet of plants that in East Asian painting represent the scholarly virtues and were a standard subject for self-directed study by artists working through painting manuals. Gekko's training was almost entirely autodidactic, built on copying older works, and his floral studies show an affinity with the ink-painting traditions of the Nanga and Kanō schools translated into the keyblock-and-color discipline of woodblock printing. The design pares the plant down to leaves, scape, and bloom, relying on the carver's line for the flick and curl of the leaves and on flat color for the petals; such restraint is characteristic of late-Meiji single-sheet kacho-e, which were produced for collectors as well as for binding into albums. The print belongs to the same broad nature-study practice as Gekko's carp, sparrow, and chrysanthemum sheets.