“In Praise of Blossoms” Exhibition

Sato Sakura Museum

[Image: Nobuyoshi Watanabe "Spring Evening" (2001)]

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Nobuyoshi Watanabe Spring Evening 2001

Sato Sakura Gallery New York presents In Praise of Blossoms, a collection of both contemporary Nihonga masterpiece paintings hand selected from the Sato Sakura Museum, and emerging artists’ works. This seasonal medley of motifs features a celebratory pantheon of floral icons including cherry and plum blossoms, peonies, and even some lesser known flowers like that of the perennial wild cabbage.

For centuries the dramatic and diverse hues of the ever changing four seasons has been the inspiration for incalculable Japanese painters’ works: from the nascent life-filled buds that emerge in spring after a long slumber, to the vibrant verdigris of summer, to the warm browns and reds of the autumn harvest, and finally to the cool tones of winter snows and the biting cold.

Like the delicate blossoms that begin to wither and fall mere hours after they peak, Japanese painters’ fascination with moments of seasonal beauty - spectacular as they are fleeting - abundant in our natural world has continued uninterrupted for generations.

Evidence of this abounds in the works of featured artist Nobuyoshi Watanabe’s ode to a still-thriving ancient cherry tree at Kuonji Temple in his imposing panel screen work, Spring Evening. In her aptly titled White Peony, Mitsuei Saito composes a veritable paean to the velvety petals of a great white peony in the delicate hues of her contemporary ink wash expression. Similarly, Noriko Okawara’s springtime vignette, Gion Shirakawa, extols a canopy of cherry trees in momentary full bloom along the banks of the famous Shirakawa river in Gion, Kyoto.

Imbued with the traditional spirit and aesthetics of Nihonga expression and a uniquely modern sensibility, the collected works of In Praise of Blossoms invites you to experience this timeless celebration of inflorescence.