Japanese screen: Melody of Magnolia Blossoms

Spring Offering is a small yet exquisitely refined Edo-period screen originally created as a backdrop for a Girls’ Day altar. Against a softly shimmering gold-leaf background, delica...

This graceful two-panel screen captures the essence of summer with its subtle depiction of slender grasses and fine lines, artfully arranged against a golden background. The screen e...

Refined work by a painter from the first half of the 19th century, from the landscape of the "Rinpa" school by a painter from the end of the 18th century, the Rinpa school. Six panels painted in ink on gold leaf and "gofun" on vegetable paper. The flowers are made with the "gofun" technique, natural or pigmented white oyster powder. Rinpa is one of the major historical schools of Japanese painting. The style was consolidated by the brothers Ogata Korin (1658–1716) and Ogata Kenzan (1663–1743). This folding screen has a very clean design that leaves plenty of room for the beautiful golden landscape. It comes flat and you can easily hang it with our hooks. Lucio Morini...

Cherry Blossoms Kano Sanrakuki (1898-1981) Showa period, circa 1930 2-panel Japanese Screen Color, gofun and gold leaf on paper Against a backdrop of gold-leafed ground, the lichen covered trunk and branches of the life-sized cherry blossom tree reach out and beyond the confines of the pictorial surface. The overall composition has a feeling of flatness which draws emphasis to the surface and the three-dimensionality of the cherry blossoms. Painstakingly built-up layers of thickly applied shell-white gofun detail the voluminous blossoms and cover large areas of this tour-de-force of Japanese Nihonga painting. By simplifying the background, minimizing the number of colors and depicting the blossoms with such heavy relief, the artist has emphasized the stunning presence of the cherry tree. The type of tree depicted is the Yae-Zakura; a double-layered type of cherry blossom famed for its beauty and strength. When we think of Japanese cherry blossoms, the first thing that comes to mind is Somei Yoshino variety, which has a single flower with five almost white petals. This type is fragile and easily blown away by strong wind or rain. Most of the double-flowered cherry blossoms begin to bloom when the Somei-Yoshino falls, and the flowering period lasts longer than that of the Somei-Yoshino. Kano Sanrakuki originally studied painting at the Kyoto City Arts and Crafts School under the tutelage of Yamamoto Shunkyo...