Plum Tree
Ogata Kōrin (Japanese, 1658–1716)
c. 1700
- Medium
- hanging scroll; ink on silk
- Classification
- Painting
- Dimensions
- Image: 94 x 35.4 cm (37 x 13 15/16 in.); Including mounting: 177.2 x 51.8 cm (69 3/4 x 20 3/8 in.)
- Culture
- Japan, Edo period (1615–1868)
- Museum
- Cleveland Museum of Art, Japanese Art
- Credit line
- John L. Severance Fund
- Rights
- Public domain (CC0), as the museum states it.
- Who can see it
- Little Ones profiles and older: it shows gentle subjects for the very young. How works are placed
View at the Cleveland Museum of Art
About this work
Ogata Kōrin had to think through his design carefully to create these white plum blossoms and deliver their effect, as he used the reserve technique—where selected areas of the painting surface are left unpainted—to achieve it. He probably roughed in the tree before applying an ink wash to the entire silk surface, except where he intended to place the flowers. He likely then returned to articulate the petals and, in some cases, the pistils and stamens. The composition shows the tree twisting out of view, only to return with a branch of new growth jabbing forth from an old, broken limb, thereby heightening the visual impact of the blossoms.
