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Flowers
and Grasses of the Four Seasons
 Attributed
to Sotatsu School
Flowers and Grasses of the Four Seasons
Japan; Edo period, about 1620-1650
Pair of six-panel folding screens; color and ink on gold leaf on paper
1985.1.1-2
This striking pair of screens exemplifies the style of painting most closely
associated with the Sotatsu school of painting, named for the painter
and calligrapher Tawaraya Sotatsu (active 1600 - 1640). The screens illustrate
the changes from spring to winter with representations of the flowers,
grasses, plants, and vegetables that bloom in each of the seasons. The
vegetation is painted in the "boneless" or outlineless technique. In this
method, shapes are created using color rather than filling in outlined
forms. In some cases, the boneless forms have been painted with thin,
translucent pigments that allow the gold background to shine through.
In others, thick layers of gessolike material (gofun) have been piled
up to give the petals of the flowers a dimensionality. The entire composition
of this pair of screens is painted from a bird's-eye perspective, an approach
intended to create a sense of intimacy between the viewer and the screens.
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