Flowers and Trees of the Four Seasons (early-mid 1700s): Art, History and Details

Flowers and Trees of the Four Seasons (early-mid 1700s) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection. The museum's creator attribution is Watanabe Shikō (Japanese, 1683–1755).

The work and its context

The museum's open-access catalogue describes the work:

The painter Watanabe Shikō had a special interest in scientific realism, based on interactions with his patron Konoe Iehiro. Shikō combined his attention to accurate depiction of plants with strong ink outlines and decorative elements like gold and silver, arriving at an innovative style that influenced many of his peers in the city of Kyoto.

Object facts

• Title: Flowers and Trees of the Four Seasons
• Date: early-mid 1700s
• Creator attribution: Watanabe Shikō (Japanese, 1683–1755)
• Culture: Japan, Edo period (1615–1868)
• Type: Painting
• Technique: Pair of six-panel folding screens; ink, color, gold, silver, and gilding on paper
• Dimensions: Painting (each): 155 x 368.5 cm (61 x 145 1/16 in.)
• Collection: ASIAN - Folding screen
• Department: Japanese Art
• Accession number: 2021.132

A detail from the museum

One plant in these screens, tumeric, or ukon in Japanese, is found in Okinawa.

Collection credit

Severance and Greta Millikin Purchase Fund

Further reading listed by the museum

• Kyoto City Art Museum, ed. Rinpa no issai: Watanabe Shikō-ten: Daikakuji shōheiga o chūshin ni [= 渡邊始興: 琳派の異才: 大覚寺 障壁画 を 中心に]. Kyoto: Kyoto City Museum, 1973.
• Takeuchi Misako, “Flowers and Trees of the Four Seasons,” in Takeuchi Misako, et al., 琳派 : 特别展 : 美の継承 - 宗達, 光琳, 抱一, 其一 [= Rimpa: Succession of Beauty—Sotatsu, Korin, Hoitsu, Kiitsu]. Nagoya: Nagoya City Museum, 1994.
• Takeuchi, Melinda. “Watanabe Shikō (1683–1755): Flowers and Trees of the Four Seasons,” in Singer, Robert T, John T Carpenter, et al., Japan Foundation, Agency for Cultural Affairs, Japan., National Gallery of Art (U.S.). Edo, Art in Japan 1615-1868. Washington, DC: National Gallery of Art, 1998.

View the collection record

See the museum's photographs and full catalogue entry. Catalogue text is reproduced from the Cleveland Museum of Art's open-access data, with HTML formatting removed. This object and its supplied image are designated CC0.