Japanese Maple and Autumn Plants

Simple, dramatic arrangements of natural motifs and innovative arrangements of color are hallmarks of the style of Japanese art that has been known since the late nineteenth century as Rimpa. As in this painting, Rimpa artists paid close attention to the visual contrast of natural motifs to open space and of brilliant applications of color with clear, sharp contours to softer gradations of tone produced by color and ink washes. The artist Sakai Oho was adopted as a successor to the painter Sakai Hoitsu (1761–1828). Hoitsu's study and publication of designs by the brothers Ogata Korin (1658–1716) and Ogata Kenzan (1663–1743) were instrumental in reviving interest in these artists and in the Rimpa style of painting and design in the nineteenth century.