Blossoming Cherry Trees

Sakai Hōitsu

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Paintings of cherry trees in isolation are surprisingly rare, considering they are the quintessential symbol of Japan. The cherry tree serves in literature and painting as an emblem of spring or an allusion to certain famous sites (meisho) such as Yoshino, near Nara. This small-screen composition—which originally probably lacked the wide silver band at the bottom—illustrates Sakai Hōitsu’s unerring sense of space, created here by an expanse of gold leaf. Hōitsu, an ardent admirer of the Kyoto artist Ogata Kōrin (1658–1716), strove to transplant the Rinpa aesthetic to Edo. Hōitsu was trained in painting as well as in the literary arts of haikai (seventeen-syllable seasonal verse) and kyōka (thirty-one-syllable witty verse). His immersion in haikai, with its sensitivity to the seasons, is reflected in his attention to individual floral subjects not central to the traditional repertory of mainstream painting studios.

Asian Art

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

The Met's collection of Asian art—more than 35,000 objects, ranging in date from the third millennium B.C. to the twenty-first century—is one of the largest and most comprehensive in the world. Each of the many civilizations of Asia is represented by outstanding works, providing an unrivaled experience of the artistic traditions of nearly half the world.

Metropolitan Museum of Art