Old Pine and Plum

Old Pine and Plum is a hanging-scroll painting by Tomioka Tessai in ink and color on silk, pairing the two great auspicious motifs of East Asian painting — the venerable, weathered pine and the plum tree blossoming on bare branches in late winter. Within the bunjinga (literati painting) tradition, both subjects carry strong moral associations: the pine as an emblem of endurance and uprightness through winter, the plum as an emblem of purity and resilience flowering before any other plant in the new year. Together they form one half of the traditional 'three friends of winter' (pine, bamboo, plum) and one of the most resonant subjects of New Year painting in Japan. Tessai's handling combines the rough, calligraphic brushwork of his late style with the dense application of mineral color characteristic of his mature manner; the picture carries an extended inscription in classical Chinese drawing on the poetic tradition surrounding both trees. Compositions of this kind are common in Tessai's late oeuvre and were prized as auspicious gifts for milestone occasions — sixtieth birthdays, weddings, new-year celebrations — for which the pine-and-plum combination carried the maximum charge of cultivated good wishes.