Winter and Summer Flowers

c. 1600

Winter and Summer Flowers, c. 1600. Kaihō Yūshō (Japanese, 1533–1615). One of a pair of six-panel folding screens; ink, color, and gold on paper; image: 157 x 358.2 cm (61 13/16 x 141 in.); overall: 169.6 x 370.8 cm (66 3/4 x 146 in.); panel: 169.6 x 61.6 cm (66 3/4 x 24 1/4 in.); with frame: 173.2 x 374.4 cm (68 3/16 x 147 3/8 in.). The Cleveland Museum of Art, John L. Severance Fund 1987.40.2 White camellias bloom behind a large pine in the right screen and blue morning glories creep through bamboo in the left screen of this composition. The mountains and bridge suggest a continuous landscape, but the paintings actually juxtapose flowers of winter and summer, with time progressing from right to left. Kaihō Yūshō painted similar landscapes for Zen temples in Kyoto. The pine and bamboo are defined by ink wash, but the flowers take form through color within contour lines.