Small Cute ThingsーHina Decorations and Gosho Dolls

1. Hina doll

Heizo Oki VI

Historically, there have been two forms of hina dolls: tachi-bina, or standing hina dolls; and dairi-bina, or seated hina dolls.

Hina dolls grew in popularity around the middle of the 17th century, as part of the Hinamatsuri festival that takes place every March, and both standing and seated hina dolls were put on display.

These two dolls can be further categorized as yusoku-bina—a type of hina doll created in Kyoto by the Takakura family, who were students of court attire.

The male hina doll is dressed in full court attire; he wears formal “uenohakama” legwear and a black robe, a crown upon his head, socks known as “shitouzu,” and he holds a “shaku”—or flat scepter—in his right hand.

The majority of the standing hina dolls created by the Maruhei Oki Doll Shop were clothed in ochre-colored robes; it is said that the sixth-generation master only made three figures robed in black, including the figure before you.

Its clothing is a blend of historical court attire and the splendor of the imaginary.

The female hina doll is also dressed in full court attire, namely the “karaginumo” worn in the Imperial court.

Karaginumo was more commonly known as “junihitoe,” meaning “twelve layers,” and comprised, in order, the following items: kosode, uchibakama, hitoe, itsutsuginu, uchiginu, uwagi, karaginu, itsutsuginu, uchiginu, uwagi, karaginu, and mo.

Her hair is tied in the osuberakashi style, and adorned with a yui hairband and saishi hairpin.

Her make-up incorporates the double-eyebrows known as “nijumayu.”

2. Hongurui doll, Court lady with a Japanese spaniel

Heizo Oki VII

The child in this work is a “kanjo,” or court lady.

Her traditional hakama clothing is scarlet, but it was customary for children to wear dark purple hakama.

And while a kanjo never wears an embroidered kosode, her kosode is embroidered with cherry blossoms and other designs.

Here, the doll-maker Heizo Oki appears to have mixed fact and fiction, prioritizing decorativeness over historical fidelity.

The dog is a Japanese spaniel, a traditional breed of dog that was imported from China during the Nara.

Later, in the Edo period, these small, expensive dogs were frequently kept in court circles and women’s quarters of Edo castle.

This pair of dolls, entitled “Court lady leading a Japanese spaniel,” was often used to celebrate the first Hina festival after a baby’s birth, up to the start of the Second World War.

The attractiveness of the girl’s scarlet hakama and the dog’s white fur meant the pair of dolls were frequently included in hina doll displays.

Before the war, Japanese spaniel dolls used to be flocked, with silk hairs implanted onto the surface of the doll; after the war, however, a lack of craftsmen forced even Heizo Oki to start carving them out of wood.

The doll here is one such example.

3. Five court ladies

Heizo Oki VII

Normally, a hina doll display would feature three court ladies; here, however, there are five court ladies, making for a lively scene.

Court ladies would never have worn embroidered kosode garments; in this work, however, they are wearing gorgeous kosode embroidered with phoenixes and cherry blossoms, tie-dyed in the hitta-shibori style.

Strict adherence to historical forms of dress can result in a lack of ornateness, and so the doll-maker has here chosen to blend fact and fiction.

Heizo Oki categorizes court ladies into three types, according to how the straps of the formal hakama trousers they wear are tied: “tasuki,” in which the straps of the hakama are tucked up with a tasuki cloth; “musubi,” in which the straps of the hakama are tied up at the side of the dress; and “uchigi,” in which the straps of the hakama are tied at the side, and an uchigi robe is worn over the top.

The court ladies in this work are dressed in the musubi style.

Together, the five dolls create a humorous scene: the court maidens on the outside left and right—both holding containers of sake—are young wakaonna girls; the court maidens on the inner left and right—both holding ornate shimadai stands—are ofuku, ladies with plump round faces and small, round noses; the court maiden in the center has an aged face.

Each of the dolls holds an object used during auspicious occasions—such as noshi origami containing dried abalone, kumokawarake earthenware bowls—and helps imbue the hina doll
display with a sense of positivity.

4. Gosho doll, Shakkyo

Heizo Oki VII

This piece, entitled “Shakkyo,” is based on “Goshoningyo Mitateshakkyo,” a doll that forms part of the collection of the Kyoto National Museum.

“Shakkyo”—meaning “stone bridge”—is a Noh play that features a lion dance.

In the Tang dynasty, Monk Jakujo travels from Japan to China; there, beside a stone bridge that leads to Mt. Seiryo and the Pure Land of Bodhisattva Monju, he encounters a child.

The child teaches Jakujo about the origins and the history of the stone bridge: that the bridge is dangerous and cannot be crossed, that on the other side of the bridge lies the Pure Land of Bodhisattva Monju, and that, in front of the bridge, a miracle will surely occur.

Before long, there appears a lion—a beast from the Pure Land of Bodhisattva Monju—and, in a frenzy, the lion begins to play with blooming peony flowers.

On the Noh stage, the stone bridge is suggested by a tatami mat covered with peonies.

In this work, however, the lion is depicted holding red and white bouquets of peonies and, instead of wearing a lion mouth, the mouth is placed upon the actor’s head.

The red crêped haragake apron and sleeveless odenchi kimono are decorated with peonies and butterflies, showing the doll’s connection to the play.

5. Noh doll, Sanbaso

Heizo Oki VII

“Sanbaso” refers to a dance performed by the comic kyogen actor in the Noh play entitled “Okina.”

Okina is a play without a story in which its actors sing and dance for peace and safety across the land.

Sanbaso is a two-part religious ritual within this play that prays for a bountiful harvest; the doll holds a bell in his right hand, indicating it is based on the Suzu-no-dan dance from the second half of Sanbaso.

The doll exhibited here is the largest Sanbaso doll made by the Maruhei Oki Doll Shop, and the entire piece, including the props, was made by Maruhei.

The doll wields a chukei fan in his left hand but, decorated with a shochikumai pattern of pines, bamboos, and plums, it is more ornate than it would be in an actual Noh play.

The doll’s black satin costume, decorated with a large, vibrantly colored crane, also differs from the Noh original.

Indeed, it is perhaps closer to the costumes used in puppet shows or in kabuki.

There are further differences: when performing the Suzu-no-dan dance, the Noh actor wears the black mask of an old man, but the doll here is a child who wears no mask; the doll’s kensaki eboshi hat is also painted black and emblazoned with a red sun.

This deliberate blending of fact and fiction makes for a compelling work.

6. Noh doll, daimyo of “Suehirogari”

Heizo Oki VII

“Suehirogari” is a play from kyogen—a form of traditional Japanese comic theater—which features a master, Kaho-mono, and his servant, Taro-kaja.

Kaho-mono is depicted wearing the formal samurai eboshi hat and a kimono costume known as a “suo.”

The leading role is Kaho-mono, and the supporting role is Taro-kaja.

The story of the play is as follows: Kaho-mono orders Taro-kaja to go and buy a type of fan known as a “suehirogari.”

However, not knowing what a suehirogari is, Taro-kaja is cheated by the fraudster Suppa into buying an old umbrella.

Kaho-mono initially scolds Taro-kaja for his mistake; however, when Taro-kaja plays a song he learned from Suppa on a Kyogen flute music and dances, Kaho-mono’s anger subsides, and master and servant reconcile.

The play ends in a positive manner with Kaho-mono crying out “Iyah!”

7. Ｄecorated float,Naginatahoko

Heizo Oki VII

This is a model of “Naginata Hoko”—the float that leads the procession at the Gion Festival, one of the most famous festivals in Japan, and a symbol of the Japanese summer.

Naginata Hoko represents the Naginata hoko district of Kyoto, and is renowned for having a symbolic halberd—made by famed swordsmith Sanjo Kokajimunechika—mounted on a long pole that extends above the float’s roof.

The inner ceiling of the float is decorated with the “Kinji chakusai hyakucho-zu,” a color painting of many birds by Keibun Matsumura.

Beneath the front and rear gables are full-color, carved-wood human statues.

The drapery that hangs from the second floor of the float is emblazoned with depictions of vermilion birds, black tortoises, white tigers, and blue dragons; decorative rugs depicting Chinese lions playing with balls, or featuring Persian flower designs extend beneath them.

Naginata Hoko is therefore also called “a moving gallery.”

The float is pulled by hand to the beat of taiko drums, the clatter of handbells, and the tunes of flutes.

Heizo Oki has faithfully depicted the float in great detail: the halberd hokogashira, the ceiling art and carvings, the drapery and other decorations, and even the musicians.

8. Vase (lotus design)

Emile Gallé

Emile Gallé is known for his attractive, ornamental glass art, but he created a large number of darker, more sorrowful works, too.

When he won the Grand Prix at the 1889 Paris World’s Fair, among his exhibits he included pieces incorporating black glass which would later be called his “sadness vases.”

This vase comprises a short, hemispherical lower body, a long, thick neck, and a mouth that tapers slightly outwards.

It was made using a sophisticated technique known as “gravure,” in which black glass was flashed over a transparent base, then carved away until the transparent glass was visible, so creating patterns in relief.

The vase has been boldly decorated with the flowers and leaves of the lotus flower, which is associated in Japan and China with Buddhism.

Fittingly, Gallé has depicted this Far Eastern motif with realism and calm.

9. Vase (orchid design)

Emile Gallé

Emile Gallé was a botanist as well as a practitioner of glass art.

He developed a fondness for plants at an early age and, receiving instruction from botanists, he devoted himself to making a book of plant specimens.

In later life, he helped establish a horticultural association in his hometown of Nancy, and even submitted papers to botanical journals.

Indeed, due to his botanical background, the plants in his designs are so accurately depicted that their exact species can be determined.

This vase has been elaborately decorated with Venus slippers—a type of orchid—and the leaves of a fern using purple, pink, and gold enamel.

Orchids were among Gallé’s favorite flowers, and he continued to study them until his death.

Here, he has emphasized the great beauty of the orchids by surrounding them with delicate fern leaves.

10. Dicentra Spectabilis

Emile Gallé

Thought to have been created by Emile Gallé in his later years, this rare work is themed on the Asian bleeding heart flower—from its overall shape to the bold relief decoration on the front and the patterns engraved on the back.

Distinctive for its heart-shaped flowers, the Asian bleeding heart was often used by Emile Gallé in his designs, and the elaborateness of this vase’s design powerfully suggests just how taken he was by the flower’s unique ecology and lovely form.

Gallé died of leukemia on September 23, 1904, at the age of 58.

The following week, L’Illustration carried an obituary of Gallé together with a photograph of one of his Asian bleeding heart-themed vases.

The Shimose family called this work “The heart-shaped tear,” after the German name for the flower, and displayed it with great care in the middle of a large, altar-like cabinet made by Gallé.

11. Vase (inky cap mushroom design)

Emile Gallé

The common inky cap is a mushroom that grows on dead wood from spring to autumn.

They have long stems and grey caps but, when they mature, their caps disintegrate in the course of a single night and turn into black slime—hence their Japanese name means “one-night mushrooms.”

Émile Gallé sought inspiration in nature for his works, and he appears to have sensed the fragility of existence in the common inky cap.

In his later years, Gallé produced multiple versions of a common inky cap lamp—indeed, it is a work of his that is particularly well known.

Of the six versions that still exist, two are in the collection of Japanese galleries.

This vase is also inspired by the common inky cap.

Gallé used various techniques—such as sandwiching decorative elements between layers of glass—to create a wondrous natural scene on the surface of the vase.

In addition to spider webs and withered leaves—motifs that are associated with death—he also depicts five common inky cap mushroom.

The caps of these mushrooms are in varying states of opening, as if representing different stages of their development, and Gallé has succeeded in capturing the fragility of their existence.

12. Vase (butterfly design)

Emile Gallé

Glass is characterized by its transparency.

Seeking to maximize this transparency, in glass art care was typically taken to eliminate impurities from the production process; the presence of impurities caused bubbles and mottling, which were regarded as faults.

However, Émile Gallé saw the decorative potential of these bubbles and mottling, and deliberately incorporated them into his works; in so doing, he expanded the expressive possibilities of glass.

Gallé created this vase in his later period; it consists of areas of purple and orange-colored glass layered on top of a transparent base.

He used marquetry techniques to decorate the trunk of the glass with three butterflies—in yellow, red, and purple.

Each of the butterflies have eyespots and other unique patterns on their wings; Gallé often incorporated butterflies and moths into his works, perhaps indicating a particular interest in the patterns on their wings.

Bubbles and speckles have been incorporated into the base glass, which also features engraved swirls; the butterflies are expertly shown fluttering in the air.

13. Vase（pine tree in the snow design）

Emile Gallé

Émile Gallé often incorporated quotes from poetry—both modern and ancient—in his works.

At times, these quotes hinted at hidden themes or at his emotions, and were an attempt to make his works even more abundantly symbolic.

This drive toward enhanced symbolism stemmed from Gallé’s strong desire to raise the standing of glass art so that it stood side-by-side with more established arts such as painting and sculpture.

This vase consists of yellow-green uranium glass covered with white glass, then shaped into the form of an urn.

Gallé portrays the falling snow by adding a layer of white glass powder; he has etched the outline of the motifs on the surface, and drawn the pine cones and branches and needles in enamel.

The influence of Japanese art can be seen in Gallé’s choice of snow and pines as his subject and in his careful representation of snow.

In the body of the glass, Gallé has carved a line of poetry from “La reine du bal (the queen of the ball)” by Sully Prudhomme, a contemporary of Gallé’s.

“Tears of winter, like the tears of unfortunate people.”

It is as if these words, which compare the falling snow to tears, convey the cries of the pine as it seeks to hold out against the cold and withstand weight of the snow.

14. Lamp (snow landscape design)

Daum Frères

Jean Daum and his family originally lived in Bitche, in northeastern France.

Bitche was annexed by Germany during the Franco-Prussian War, and the Daums left their hometown and opened a glass factory in Nancy in 1878.

Initially, the factory produced tableware and other everyday products, but when his sons Auguste and Antonin Daum took over the business, they soon began creating artworks and gradually began to distinguish themselves.

The Daum brothers’ popularity rested on their enameled landscapes.

The snow scenes enameled onto the two works here are also to be found on other containers and lamps of various shapes.

The brothers first created glass dappled with yellow and orange; they etched their designs in relief on the surface of this glass; they then used enamel to decorate the glass with a winter scene of forests covered in snow.

In a truly painterly manner, they skillfully distributed trees of different sizes to create a sense of depth in the scene, and used thick layers of enamel to hint at the texture of the snow-covered ground.

When the lamp is lit, the mottled base layer of glass glows orange like a sky during sunset.

15. Snow in the lakeside

Gyokudo Kawai

Japanese artist Gyokudo Kawai painted modern landscapes that captured the light and ambience of the changing seasons.

His landscapes always contain vivid portrayals of human activity: people leading horses laden with luggage, for example, carrying farming tools and farming in fields, or fishing in small boats.

For Kawai, the presence of human activity lent a vitality to nature.

The exact location of the lake depicted in this painting is unknown, but the grandeur of the mountains in the background suggests somewhere in the Shinshu region.

The land is covered in a thin layer of snow; leafless trees and straight-backed pines dominate the foreground, while on the other side of the lake, a village and small boats appear to have been added for effect.

The work appears at first glance to be an ink painting; however, the surface of the lake has been stained blue.

Looking at the farmers clearing snow under the eaves of their houses in the bottom-left of the painting, one can almost hear their breaths and feel their warmth amid the grandeur of nature.

16. Snowy mountains

Matazo Kayama

Early in his career, Matazo Kayama liked to paint snow scenes featuring rows of leaf-less trees.

These melancholy landscapes appear to project the inner turmoil of the artist, who was unsure of which artistic style to adopt.

Seeking beautiful landscapes, from the 1960s onward Kayama visited winter peaks in various regions and gathered materials; then in the 1980s, based on these materials, he began to create paintings of snow-covered mountains that were at once realistic and idealistic.

This painting depicts Japan’s Northern Alps, about which Kayama said: “Both the mornings and evenings are beautiful; above all, however, the morning after a night of raging snowstorms, when the pointed, silvery-white peaks gleam against a gloriously clear blue sky—then they are breathtakingly splendid.”

In this painting, too, Kayama captures the beauty of a silvery-white snowscape—with snow-laden trees and towering ridgelines silhouetted against a clear blue sky.

For Kayama, winter mountains possessed inexhaustible appeal; they were a key subject that he continued to paint for many years

17. Radio Relay Station in Snow

Shikanosuke Oka

Shikanosuke Oka is one of only a few Japanese practitioners of pointillism.

While studying the techniques of the neo-Impressionist Georges Seurat, he developed his own unique style of pointillism that entailed carefully considering the tones of various colors without mixing different pigments.

Oka painted pansies, old castles in forests, and snowscapes throughout his life.

He was particularly careful about his depictions of snow; wishing to accurately capture dry snow, not wet snow, he trialed various methods of brushwork to capture its texture.

This painting is of a wireless relay station that stands in the hills, against a backdrop of vast mid-winter mountains.

A gale appears to be blowing near the summit, driving trails of powdered snow into the sky.

Oka has portrayed the deep azure of the sky and the russet bricks of the relay station in his unique pointillist style, imbuing the desolate snowscape with a sense of rhythm and warmth.

He has captured the cold, dry texture of the snow, too.

18. Gourd-shaped sake bottle, overglaze polychrome enamels

Kenkichi Tomimoto

Kenkichi Tomimoto made a wide variety of porcelain: white porcelain, blue and white porcelain, as well as porcelain decorated with pigment and gold leaf.

But he was particularly interested in patterns.

Through his friendship with Bernard Leach, he developed a conviction that his patterns should not be based on existing patterns, but created entirely anew by drawing on natural motifs.

When he started attending the Kutani kiln and studying how color could be added to porcelain, he developed a large number of new patterns.

Perhaps the most famous is the “Iroe shiben karen renzoku moyo,” a colored pattern of interlocking four-petaled flowers.

This calabash-shaped porcelain is decorated with a pattern of interlocking four-petaled flowers in vermilion, green, and yellow, and a pattern of plaid indigo and vermilion.

Tomimoto has used lines that curve powerfully in both directions to create a sense of unity between the shape of the object and its surface decoration; he has also inserted a white band around its middle, dividing the object into two.

19. Vase with hawk design, underglaze blue

Rosanjin Kitaoji

Rosanjin Kitaoji was both chef and potter.

He prepared delicious food, and he served it on appropriately beautiful tableware that he himself had made.

In 1925, he opened “Hoshigaoka saryo,” a members-only traditional Japanese restaurant, in Tokyo; he then built the Hoshigaoka kiln in Kamakura, to the south of Tokyo, where he began making the tableware that would accompany his foods.

His ceramics were wide-ranging in style, and included dishes modeled after Shino, Oribe, Shigaraki, Bizen, and Seto ware from Japan, as well as blue and white and colored porcelains from China.

Kitaoji created this Chinese-style blue and white vase using a technique he had learned from Seika Suda, a ceramicist from Yamashiro, Ishikawa Prefecture.

In confident, dynamic brushstrokes, Kitaoji has depicted a fierce-looking hawk that looks as if it will tear the flesh of its prey asunder at any moment.

He has left large areas of porcelain uncolored, which represent the sky, and attained a wonderful balance between stillness and movement.

20. Girl

Pierre-Auguste Renoir

A lone girl wears a lace hat, a white blouse, and red skirt, and she has a red ribbon in her long hair.

Holding a stick-like object, she looks at something outside the picture space.

Pierre-Auguste Renoir was patronized by affluent Parisians, and frequently commissioned to paint their families, including their children.

Renoir was 44 when his eldest son Pierre was born in 1885, followed by Jean and Claude, and he had three sons in total.

He asked not only his own sons to model for him, but the children of his friends and neighbors, too.

In this gem of a painting, Renoir has captured the gentle features of the unnamed girl with great care.

The hat and clothes, in contrast, are depicted with swift brushstrokes—such that the girl appears to melt into the green of the background—while the white underground shows through in places as well.

21. Purple bouquet

Marc Chagall

Marc Chagall was one of the 20th century’s leading artists.

He is known for his many paintings inspired by his love for his first wife, Bella. And for Chagall, a bouquet of flowers came to have a special meaning.

On July 7, 1915, on Chagall’s birthday, Bella celebrated his birthday by giving him a bouquet of flowers from the rowan tree.

The two married soon after, and a bouquet of flowers became for Chagall a symbol of love. He often painted bouquets alongside scenes of his hometown of Vitebsk, Russia, or of embracing lovers.

A vase of purple flowers stands in the center of this painting.

The blue of the background represents the color of the sky and the sea in the south of France, where Chagall had an atelier.

A red donkey, a memory of his hometown, and a person, likely Bella, lie side-by-side in the bottom-left of the canvas.

Although his beloved Bella passed away during the Second World War, she lived on in his memory—and Chagall continued to paint her with artistic effects and colors that elicit great emotion.

22. Sitting girl

Marie Laurencin

A woman elegantly clothed in a white dress and yellow ribbon sits on a chair.

Gorgeous ribbons and other accessories in her hair, a pearl neckless around her neck, in her left hand she holds a single rose.

Despite her grown-up appearance, her pink cheeks and her expression point to a residual childlikeness.

When Marie Laurencin aspired to be a painter in Paris at the start of the 20th century, there were almost no female artists.

She interacted with and was influenced by talented poets and painters around her, including a still-unknown Picasso.

Yet she protected her unique female sensibilities toward color and form, and began to establish her own style of expression.

Laurencin painted this portrait in the second half of her artistic career.

Layering dark reds upon a grey background to give depth to her painting, she skillfully captures the delicate disposition of a young girl.

Laurencin disliked using reds and yellows, regarding them as “masculine colors”; here, however, she uses them to great effect, and demonstrates a mature understanding of color.

23. Portrait of a village girl

Ryusei Kishida

Ryusei Kishida painted this watercolor in Kugenuma (present-day Fujisawa City), Kanagawa Prefecture, where he had moved from Tokyo to recuperate from illness.

The model is a nine-year-old girl named Omatsu who lived locally, and was a friend of his daughter Reiko.

Kishida painted portraits of Reiko, too, but at that time she was still only six years old and found it hard to sit still.

On such occasions, he seems to have used the more patient Omatsu as a model instead.

Omatsu was a plain child, but Kishida saw in her “the rustic beauty of a country girl.”

She was, to Omatsu, a model without peer.

Here, she is pictured in a kimono and haori (a short jacket worn over a kimono); if you look closely, however, the right shoulder of her haori is slightly frayed.

Kishida thought this to be strangely beautiful, too.

He described Omatsu as “looking directly forward with an air of innocence,” and he saw in her face, eyes, and eyebrows “a mysterious, limpid, enduring beauty.”

Kishida was a skilled storyteller, and he recounted various tales to keep her amused as he captured the simplicity embodied by her red cheeks.

24. Western boy playing “Poppin”

Juzo Kagoshima

Juzo Kagoshima made this doll using “shiso,” a material made by mixing washi (Japanese paper) fibers with various adhesives, grinding it with a mortar, agitating it, and kneading it by hand.

To make dolls, this shiso is stuck to plaster or clay molds, left to dry, polished, and finally colored.

The “poppin” of the title refers to a glass toy from the 18th century.

When air is blown through the long tube, the difference in air pressure and the elasticity of the thin glass at the end of the ball generate “popping” sounds.

This child in this work is clothed in a similar style to those Westerners who came to Japan at the end of the 16th century; he wears a large hat that appears in danger of falling off, and he is blowing on a poppin.

For Kagoshima, poppins reminded him of the Hakozaki Shrine festival from his hometown of Fukuoka.

“When I was a child,” he recollected, “stalls would line the seafront during the mid-autumn festival—and these poppins were sold there.”

25. Matsura Sayohime

Goyo Hirata

Sayohime Matsura is a legendary figure who features in the Manyoshu, a collection of Japanese poetry dating back to the 8th century.

She is said to have lived in the Matsuura district of Hizen Province, in present-day Saga Prefecture.

As told by the Manyoshu, when her lover Otomo no Satehiko departs on a military expedition to Korea, Sayohime climbs a high mountain, takes a white scarf from her shoulders and waves it in an outpouring of grief.

The mountain was afterwards remembered as the “scarf-waving peak.”

This doll captures the moment Sayohime waves her scarf, overcome with sorrow at her lover’s departure.

The gestures and simplified form of the model convey her feelings with great power.

Goyo Hirata was a leading maker of realistic clothed dolls.

Following the Second World War, however, he began incorporating fabric into his carved-wood dolls in a style known as “kimekomi,” and simplified the doll’s overall form.

26. Still life

Sotaro Yasui

After studying in France, Sotaro Yasui returned to Japan in 1914.

But unable to paint Japanese landscapes in the way he wished using the techniques he had learned in Europe, he fell into a depression.

He painted this work shortly after recovering—and it has a somewhat lively air.

This is a still life of four apples, four bananas, and three pears.

But the background is not dull and primarily designed to make the fruit stand out.

Instead, he has placed a vivid green Oribe ware bowl on a red, flower-pattern cloth; there is also a framed painting behind the bowl, and a decorative fusuma sliding screen.

Yasui has combined his strengths in realism with the gentle chromatic sensibility he learned in Europe, and thereby succeeded in harmonizing a large number of objects and creating a sense of unity.

His bold brushstrokes reveal the confidence he has gained after escaping his earlier depression.

27. Momentary

Yuki Ogura

Yuki Ogura devoted herself to Zen Buddhism at a young age, and the influence of Zen meditation is evident in her pictures. Indeed, she came to believe that only through meditation could one begin to understand beauty.

Japanese plum are often used to symbolize Zen: they must endure the long dark months of winter, before flowering at the start of spring; in this respect, they resemble Zen practitioners, who must endure long years of difficult training, before achieving enlightenment.

Ogura came to paint the many-colored Japanese plums that flowered in her garden as a form of reflection on her own life.

Ogura was inspired to create this work while observing the Japanese plums in her garden from her wheelchair. The chromatic red of the background shows the influence of Matisse, whom she admired greatly; this red also serves to throw into relief the white of the Japanese plums, and the blue and white ceramic vase.

The fallen petals at the bottom-left of the picture emphasize the transience of the Japanese plum’s beauty.

28. Roses

Ryuzaburo Umehara

Ryuzaburo Umehara is best known for his landscapes of Sakurajima and Mt. Fuji, but he also painted outstanding still lifes of flowers.

When he visited Beijing in 1939, Umehara brought an overglaze enamel vase back with him to Japan.

He filled the vase with roses, understanding they would not be overpowered by the gorgeousness of the vase.

Indeed, roses stimulated Umehara’s creativity.

He noted: “I am drawn to paint roses. I find them extremely interesting: the way they bulge as if they are bursting to open, and their spiral form.”

The square vase in this painting has an unusually low center of gravity.

Umehara has created a stable composition with his placement of fruit and a fruit bowl on the table; despite using contrasting reds and greens, perhaps because of their muted values, the scene appears tranquil.

29. Eggplants and Potatoes in the basket

Hanjiro Sakamoto

The term “still life” typically calls to mind roses, apples, and other flowers and fruit; the subject of this work, however, is mundane—eggplants and potatoes in a basket—and the colors are muted, too.

In fact, Hanjiro Sakamoto’s paintings are distinctive for their use of a uniquely neutral palette.

The forms of the objects are not fully defined, and their shadows indistinct—as if they have half-melted into the background.

Sakamoto has not sought to accurately draw eggplants and potatoes from life; instead, he has intentionally built their forms with individual brush strokes, leaving the distinction between object and background deliberately vague.

Sakamoto called this painterly quality “mono-kan (the feel of an object),” and strove to capture this sense of true existence in his works.

He painted a variety of subjects—including bricks, toys, and Noh masks—yet in every still life his approach was the same.

30. Still life under the lamp

Pablo Picasso

A lamp shines in the dark and illuminates some fruit and a glass cup.

The limited number of colors and the simple outlines depicted in fluid, rhythmical lines imbue the scene with a sense of energy.

From 1958 to 1963, Pablo Picasso devoted himself to a type of print called linocut, in which images are carved onto a rubber-like material called linoleum.

Ordinarily, one sheet of linoleum is used to print one color, and so creating a multicolored scene requires numerous sheets of linoleum.

But Picasso developed a new method of carving and printing a single color, then carving a little more and printing a second color, and so on.

Corrections could not easily be made using this method, and so it relied on making careful color designs in advance.

The complexity of this method may well have stirred Picasso’s creative urges.

This work was created toward the end of Picasso’s linocut period, and showcases the great technical skills he has acquired—not least in his mastery of thin lines, which are extremely difficult to achieve in linocut.

31. Moonlight

Matazo Kayama

Matazo Kayama first began painting cherry trees in 1972.

He headed for Maruyama Park in Kyoto, he found a splendid weeping cherry tree, and painted the work entitled “Haru oboro (Spring mist).”

In it, a large moon hovers in a spring mist, and a cherry tree emerges majestically from the darkness.

In this painting, which was finished after 1980, a weeping cherry tree is illuminated softly by a pale moon.

For the background, he mixes gold paint and soot-ink; using stencils, he paints innumerable petals with white pigment made from clamshells; he then colors them with a wash of pink.

The moon glimmers faintly through the mist, and the weeping cherry tree stands tall with a quiet beauty.

32. Blossoms in the grassland

Junkichi Mukai

Junkichi Mukai painted traditional Japanese thatched houses throughout his life.

While he had always had an interest in such houses, his interest grew more acute as they began to disappear—both due to widespread fires during the Second World War, and to the changing times.

Desiring “to record in paintings the nobility of these old, traditional Japanese houses, before they disappear,” Mukai traveled around Japan and painted more than a thousand of them until his death.

This painting depicts a traditional Japanese house that once stood in Koshoku City, Nagano Prefecture, surrounded by long grass and cherry trees in full bloom.

A thatched roof can be glimpsed through the vegetation, backed by a blue sky and gentle mountains.

By the time he painted this painting, Mukai had come to place great importance on the climate and natural habitat in which these buildings stood—and this was why he painted the house half-hidden by cherry trees.

The accuracy of his paintings provide great insight into the former, unspoilt landscapes of Japan.

33. Sunlight in spring

Chu Asai

Chu Asai, active in the late-19th and early-20th centuries, is regarded as having used slightly “greasy” colors.

However, as its title of “Sunlight in Spring” suggests, this is a bright painting that captures the soft sunlight of spring; it shows the influence of Asai’s stay in France from 1900 to 1902, when he lived in a village on the outskirts of Paris studying different representations of light.

The painting was exhibited at the 2nd Kansai Art Exhibition in 1903, under the title “Dried Sardines.”

Dried sardines have been widely used as a fertilizer in Japan since the 19th century, and are produced in great quantity in Chiba Prefecture, where Asai was born.

Set in Onjuku Town on the east coast of Chiba’s Boso Peninsula, this painting depicts five people, who are dressed in kimonos and aprons, drying sardines.

The painting is recorded as having been completed in 1897, but it seems likely that Asai reworked it using techniques he developed during his stay in France, before exhibiting it in 1903.

34. Mt. Fuji

Tamako Kataoka

In the 1960s, Tamako Kataoka began visiting and painting volcanoes across Japan, before narrowing her focus onto Mount Fuji.

Wishing to depict the mountain from various viewpoints, Kataoka traveled all around its foothills; in her own unique style, she painted Mount Fuji many times—as if she was conversing with it.

In this work, Kataoka has skillfully captured the brilliance and dynamism of Mount Fuji—its silhouette, its cap of snow, and the marks left by the meltwaters—and the peach-colored cherry blossoms in the foreground herald the arrival of spring.

In her paintings of Mount Fuji, Kataoka frequently included flowers—as if gifting flowers to Mount Fuji as an offering, or as if clothing the mountain in a floral kimono.

In the cherry blossoms in this picture, too, Kataoka’s respect and admiration for the mountain is tangible.