Red and White Plum Blossoms

Red and White Plum Blossoms is among the most celebrated works of Japanese art and one of the late achievements of Ogata Korin, the painter associated with the Rinpa school. The two-panel folding screens show a stylized, patterned river flowing between two plum trees: a white-blossomed one on the left and a red one on the right. The flowers place the scene in spring. The screens are generally dated to around 1714 or 1715, shortly before the artist died. Their most striking feature is the technique: the background is gold leaf, while the river was rendered in silver, which has largely darkened through the formation of silver sulfide. Technical studies and a modern reconstruction suggest that the river may once have shimmered with iridescent hues. Before the twentieth century, the screens are barely documented. They now belong to the MOA Museum of Art in Atami, where they are shown for only one month a year, in late winter, when the plum trees bloom.

Painter

Ogata Kōrin

Date

1715

Dimensions

156 × 172 cm

Museum

MOA Museum of Art

Genre

byōbu-e

Depicts

Prunus mume

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