Page 165 - Designing_Nature_The_Rinpa_Aesthetic_in_Japanese_Art Metropolitan Museum PUB

Representations of flowers are common in almost every culture,
and Japan is no exception. What makes the Rinpa example remarkable is the
extent to which multiple generations of Rinpa artists made floral imagery a central

part of their repertoire, often distilling blossoms and petals to their essential, pow­
erfully graphic forms. Every artist identified in this volume as belonging to the
Rinpa tradition made a specialty of flowers, and the abstract rendering of floral

motifs became one of the defining characteristics of the aesthetic.
As noted earlier, the artistic sensibility that we now identify as Rinpa began to
flourish just as gardening and flower arrangement were becoming increasingly
popular pastimes among the courtiers and wealthy merchants of Kyoto. Temple
and imperially commissioned gardens graced the capital, and every wealthy house­

hold could boast its own private garden courtyard. In a sense, natural motifs painted
on screens or sliding­door panels could be viewed as continuations of these gar­
den designs into the interior space. Perhaps more germane to the prominence of

floral imagery in the Rinpa tradition, however, is the link between Rinpa and
the Japanese art of flower arrangement. Originally referred to as rikka (“standing
FLOWERS flowers”), the practice of constructing attractive floral arrangements fomented an

interest in and awareness of the shapes and special characteristics of flowers.

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