THE OLD MAN WHO MADE DEAD TREES BLOOM

Hanasaka Jiisan — "The Old Man Who Makes Withered Trees Bloom" — is one of Japan's most beloved folktales, in which a kind elderly man uses the ashes of his faithful dog to cause dead plum trees to burst into blossom, while a wicked neighbor copies the ritual and is punished. Koitsu renders the tale's central miracle — the bare, winter-dead branches suddenly erupting in full bloom under the scattering ash — with a fairy-tale directness unusual in his work. The subject demonstrates his range beyond landscape into the rich territory of Japanese folk narrative.