Toyohiro Summer Painting

#toyohiro #japanesepainting #summer 

For those of you enduring the northern hemisphere summer this is the right season to share Toyohiro's famous work:
Enjoying the Evening Cool Under a Trellis

The bottle is probably earthenware clay and perhaps full of sake?

Both of them seem to be glancing up at the sky maybe not admiring the white flowers but hoping to see signs of evening rain? 

Surimono Still life Shunman

#surimono #stilllife #ukiyo-e #japaneseprint #shunman #shumman

Here's a print by Shunman showing Lotus stems and Ginger plus a Lobster or Shrimp
All of which were edible but also had other cultural significance.

It seems very minimal and sketchy compared to the lust detailed still-lifes of European art but the limited color and detail on the plant stems seems to be a delibarate choice to emphasize the areas of greater detail and color. Visual wabi sabi ? Or even poetic elegance given the accompanying poems.

Another Bumping Sunday

People I'll in ...well on my bed cos I have to alternate short hobbles in an aircast boot with raising or at least supporting the weight of my right leg.
(Stable fracture of right distal fibula)
And I can't go outside cos the current weather is making my chronic bronchitis flare up
(Lots of windswept dust n pollen)
posts to this blog or my Patreon will be irregular so today I ask
Will you join me in bumping and sharing older posts  ?
Thank You

Harunobu Print

#Harunobu #print

Girls gathering waterlilies or water lotuses is a theme that appears in a variety of literature and art.
Here's Harunobu's treatment of the topic. Some Ukiyo-e artists depict a whole pond of lotus or just the plants and flowers but Harunobu balances both the human element of the girls in a boat with the simple beauty of the plants themselves. It is not an elaborately colored print but has a simple elegance that lets the lines work.

Take a good look at the composition too.The balance of horizationals and verticals.

 The contrast of straight stems with the round curve of leaves and sleeves and obi.