The Artist:     Toyohara Kunichika. 1

The Work:      An oban entitled "I want it to bloom early" from Mitate tai zukushi series (A Collection of Desires, 12/1877-1/1878), published by Inoue Shigehei.  A woman peddler bundled up in winter stands in front of her two trays of plants, including a dwarf potted tree.
    Some of the other titles in the series include "I Really Want to Go to Sleep," "I Want to Go Abroad," "I Want to Become Beautiful," "I Want to Wash My Hands," and "Wanting to See."

The Work:      "The seated woman in this print is posing for her photograph and entirely new and wholly Western intervention in the cultural life of Japan.  The very fact that she is seated in a Western-style chair is new enough but the small vignette image at the top clearly tells the story.  Positioned on a table in the background is a a stunning flowering Bonsai and a good case could be made that this is a variety of Chrysanthemum, not uncommon in Bonsai culture at this time."

The Work:      From a series of beautiful women, Shinryu nijushi toki, 1880, an old curving-trunked tree in a wide-lipped deep pot, aqua with white dragon design.  The leaves are of two colors -- possibly we are seeing the darker top of some and lighter undersides of others.  The plant resembles a rose.  The upper background is reddish and, from this copy, it is difficult to tell whether or not there are a few small reddish flowers on top.  A black-spotted white cat is laying in front of the pot and a woman with open kimono is tying her obi (sash) to the front and right of the tree.

The Work:      Kifujin No Tashinami   ( Contributor's Taste ?)   A tryptych of six noblewomen has two bonsai towards the left side.  The first bonsai is a tall and thin neagari style pine (?) in a shallow blue oval pinched-neck pot with three feet.  To the right of this, and now in the middle section of the tryptych, is a shallow blue rectangular pot with white corner feet holding what appears to be a cave rock.  Longer vertical, the oval stone with the large opening has a distinct apex as well as a wider base.  Behind it in the same container is perhaps an accessory plant.

The Work:      Meeting for Peace Negotiations is a triptych showing the Japanese on the left separated from the Chinese on the right by the negotiating table at Shunpanro Restaurant, April 1895.  A large tray landscape in the center panel sits on the rear edge of the large red cloth-covered table.  A gray barked pine (equivalent to a meter high?) is shown with rocks and iris-like-leaved flowers in a broad tray which might have been only 1 cm deep.  (Perhaps the landscape is resting on something to the right of the main table.)  This is said to be the better of two versions done of the subject by the artist.

The Artist:      Kiyochika (b. Kobayashi Kiyochika, 1847-1915) was an independent from Edo who was influenced by imported lithographs and etchings, and thus turned to woodblock printing.  He had a considerable success, particularly between 1876 and 1881, but after that the style in which he worked lost its popularity.  He was also a book, magazine and newspaper illustrator.  His prints contained views of contemporary Tokyo as it changed under the impact of Western influence. 6

The Work:      First Month: The Sleeping Dragon Plum at Kameido is a triptych from Views of the Famous Places of Tokyo, c.February 1896.  The sharp lines and areas of solid color characteristic of the Ukiyo-e tradition are gone, and the print has become virtually a replication of Japanese-style painting.  In the lower right corner of the right-most panel, a young Japanese girl and her European-garbed father are viewing two bonsai under a covered porch.  On a low raised stand in a pale blue bowl is a red-berried plum tree.  On a mat in a slightly larger pot at the print's edge is larger plum.  The background scene is of plum-blossom viewing at Plum Estate (Umeyashiki) in Kameido in eastern Tokyo.  Some forty other people, in mixed culture clothing/warm winter dress, are milling around or are at low mat-covered tables not far from a lake's edge.

The Subject:     The Sleeping Dragon Plum, a tree right of the triptych's center, is surrounded by a low fence and marked with a plaque.  It was the single most famous tree in Tokyo.  The ancient plum was known for the habit of sending roots into the ground from its descending branches, which would then rise in turn as new shoots, giving an overall contour of a reclining dragon.  The tree was badly damaged by a great flood in 1910.  It survived until the 1920s.

The Artist:      Kiyochika. 7

The Work:     An untitled painting dated to 1890 is located over the doorway of the Inn Mantei in the Gion quarter of Kyoto.  The silk background has turned brown with age and the black ink is smudged and misty.  This work shows a double-trunk pine in a low rectangular pot, some utensils nearby, and large leaf, and a poem inscribed in the upper right.  The similarity between the two trees planted side by side might be faulted as too much sameness in height, trunk size, and even to the number of branches.  But the lines in the trunks and branches have been combined into a beautiful linear arrangement. 

The Artist:     Tessai (b. Tomioka Hyakuren, 1837-1924) was one of the most renowned artists in Japanese history.  He painted in the so-called "Literary Men's Style," employed by Chinese artists of the Tang dynasty.  Occasionally he even included Chinese poems in his own paintings.  But he was not a slavish copier of the soft and shaded Chinese style of painting, the artists of which he admired both for their manner of painting and their lofty ideas.  He shared with them their love of untouched nature represented often by very free brush strokes for which Tessai became famous.
     At first he trained to be a Shinto priest, and he eventually became high priest at the important Otori Shrine near Osaka.  In the meantime, he had started a successful school of painting.  He also helped by actually working on the restoration of some old shrines and temples.
     In his youth the artist met the aged nun Otagaki Rengetsu, a poetess who made pottery on which she inscribed her poems.  Tessai was entrusted to deliver these pots to the nun's parishioners.  From this he learned pottery making, which he practiced to some extent throughout his life, poetry and the joy of giving.  In later years, when his paintings on fans or scrolls were in great demand, he continued to give them away, as he had done for years, rather than sell them.
     When his brother died, Tessai returned to Kyoto, his birthplace, and bought a small house in which he lived the rest of his days.  He never gave up his interest in religious philosophy and was always known as a scholar-artist.
     A master of ink painting ( sumi ), Tessai reduced details in his pictures to the essentials and thereby was able to create literally thousands of works, ranging in size from small sketches to large scrolls.  In his lifetime he also made many long journeys, mostly on foot, throughout the islands of his homeland.
     Even before his death, numerous forgeries of his paintings were put on the market.  This was a kind of tribute, perhaps, but also a great annoyance to him.  8

The Work:      Japanese Marriage (published 1899) drawn after a native painting.

The Artist:      L. Crépon was a French illustrator, fl. 1869-70.  9

The Work:      A Pleasant Life in a Gourd (1923) is noted here because it is a late depiction of a very early theme in this history.