Footnotes

山吹図　前田青邨筆　一幅　紙本淡彩　20世紀

Seison was born in what is now Nakatsugawa city, Gifu prefecture in 1885. The artist's mother died when he was 13, and he moved to Hongō in Tokyo with his father following her death. In 1901, through the introduction of Ozaki Kōyō, Maeda enrolled at the art school headed by Kajita Hanko, from whom he received the name Seison in 1902. He met and befriended fellow student, Kobayashi Kokei, whose work influenced many of Maeda's early paintings.

Maeda was a member of the Kojikai artistic group from 1907, and of the Japan Fine Arts Academy (Teikoku Bijitsuin) from 1914. Under sponsorship of the Japan Fine Arts Academy, he visited Europe in 1922, touring Rome, Florence and Paris. Although he was greatly impressed by the frescoes of the Italian Renaissance, Maeda remained faithful to the traditional Yamato-e and Rimpa styles of Japanese painting, and came to be known for his watercolor paintings on historical themes, primarily portraiture. However, Maeda worked in a variety of genres, including still life and landscapes.

In 1944, Maeda was appointed as an official court painter to the Imperial Household Agency, and taught painting to Empress Kojun. Two years later, he became an official judge of the annual Japan Arts Exhibitions (Nitten). He was also a professor at the Tokyo National University of Fine Arts and Music from 1950 until his retirement in 1959 and was awarded the Order of Culture in 1955.

The clear yellow and white flowers of yamabuki (Kerria Japonica) are a deciduous shrub and one of the most charming sights of the Japanese Spring. They are borne on graceful, arching stems and in the painting offered here, they seem to dance like butterflies among the foliage. Since ancient times the yamabuki has also been a recurring motif in Japanese poetry and the flower is also featured in textile designs and family crests.

The texture of the stems and leaves are emphasised and contrasted with expertly applied ink modalities. While finer, meticulous ink strokes define the white and yellow blooms, the luscious fresh leaves are rendered with thicker washes of ink which are partially dripped on the wet surface similar to the tarashikomi technique.