Sakura (Cherry Blossoms), Panel 2

Sakura (Cherry Blossoms), May 1953, Panel 2. The second of the two large cherry-blossom panels (114 × 371 cm) Rosanjin produced for the smoking room of Stavros Niarchos's oil tanker Andrew Dillon in May 1953, executed in the same mixed-media vocabulary of charcoal, oil, urushi lacquer, raden shell inlay, ceramic and pottery fragments, gold leaf, and lead on wooden panel. Together the two panels constitute Rosanjin's most ambitious experiment with the integration of ceramic, lacquer, calligraphic, and painting practice in a single decorative program, and they illustrate the way his postwar work moved beyond the framework of individual vessels into architectural-scale environments organized around traditional Japanese motifs. The second panel develops a complementary composition to the first, with cherry-blossom branches arranged across the long horizontal field against the dark prepared ground, the raden inlay and gold leaf catching incident light to suggest the flickering visual effect of cherry petals against the spring evening sky. The Andrew Dillon commission was facilitated by Rosanjin's mid-1950s connections to international collectors, dealers, and museum directors made during his 1954 visit to New York for his Museum of Modern Art exhibition and his subsequent travels in Europe; together with the small Sakura body of work the two panels remain among the most thoroughly documented surviving examples of his decorative installation practice.