Snow, Moon, and Flowers (Setsugekka no uchi)
Setsugekka no uchi
About This Series
Tsukioka Yoshitoshi's "Snow, Moon, and Flowers" (Setsugekka no uchi) is one of the artist's mature applications of the classical setsugekka conceit, in which subjects are organized under the three canonical aspects of seasonal beauty in Japanese verse: snow, moon and flowers. The grouping had been a staple of Japanese poetic anthologies since the Heian period and had passed into the ukiyo-e tradition as a flexible framework for triadic or larger-set print projects, treated by Hiroshige in his celebrated triptychs and by many other nineteenth-century artists. Yoshitoshi's Setsugekka no uchi, generally dated to the 1880s, applies the conceit either to historical and legendary subjects in the manner of his musha-e cycles or to bijin-ga subjects of women associated with seasonal observances, depending on which sub-cycle within his output is being catalogued; the title appears across several Yoshitoshi projects of the 1880s, and modern English cataloguing has tended to group them under the single rubric "Snow, Moon, and Flowers." The prints are issued in oban tate-e format and display the carefully integrated landscape settings, restrained late palette and monumental figure compositions that distinguish Yoshitoshi's best work of the decade. The series is closely related to his musha-e cycle "Heroes for the Snow, Moon, and Flowers" (Buyu setsugekka), which applies the same conceit explicitly to portraits of historical warriors, and the two projects are best understood as parallel applications of the setsugekka framework to different categories of subject. Impressions are held in the Museum of Fine Arts Boston, the British Museum, the Cleveland Museum of Art and the Tokyo National Museum, and the series is documented in John Stevenson's catalogues of Yoshitoshi's late period.
Prints in This Series (1)
Frequently Asked Questions
Tsukioka Yoshitoshi's "Snow, Moon, and Flowers" (Setsugekka no uchi) is one of the artist's mature applications of the classical setsugekka conceit, in which subjects are organized under the three canonical aspects of seasonal beauty in Japanese verse: snow, moon and flowers. The grouping had been a staple of Japanese poetic anthologies since the Heian period and had passed into the ukiyo-e tradition as a flexible framework for triadic or larger-set print projects, treated by Hiroshige in his celebrated triptychs and by many other nineteenth-century artists. Yoshitoshi's Setsugekka no uchi, generally dated to the 1880s, applies the conceit either to historical and legendary subjects in the manner of his musha-e cycles or to bijin-ga subjects of women associated with seasonal observances, depending on which sub-cycle within his output is being catalogued; the title appears across several Yoshitoshi projects of the 1880s, and modern English cataloguing has tended to group them under the single rubric "Snow, Moon, and Flowers." The prints are issued in oban tate-e format and display the carefully integrated landscape settings, restrained late palette and monumental figure compositions that distinguish Yoshitoshi's best work of the decade. The series is closely related to his musha-e cycle "Heroes for the Snow, Moon, and Flowers" (Buyu setsugekka), which applies the same conceit explicitly to portraits of historical warriors, and the two projects are best understood as parallel applications of the setsugekka framework to different categories of subject. Impressions are held in the Museum of Fine Arts Boston, the British Museum, the Cleveland Museum of Art and the Tokyo National Museum, and the series is documented in John Stevenson's catalogues of Yoshitoshi's late period.
The Snow, Moon, and Flowers (Setsugekka no uchi) series contains 1 prints, created by Tsukioka Yoshitoshi.
The Snow, Moon, and Flowers (Setsugekka no uchi) series was created by Tsukioka Yoshitoshi (月岡芳年).
We currently have 1 of 1 known prints from the Snow, Moon, and Flowers (Setsugekka no uchi) series indexed in our collection. Browse them all on this page.
Want to rate prints from Snow, Moon, and Flowers (Setsugekka no uchi)?
Sign up to start rating