Peonies

Peonies — the queen of flowers in both Japanese and Chinese aesthetic traditions — rendered in Urushibara's color woodcut style. The peony's full, generous blossoms with their layered petals have attracted Japanese artists across centuries, and Urushibara's treatment likely emphasizes the luminosity and voluptuous form of the bloom with the vivid pigments that woodblock printing achieves at its best. This is among his works that draw on Japanese botanical tradition rather than his European subjects.