Flowers and Grasses of the Four Seasons, a pair of six-panel folding screens, depicts some seventy species of plants, flowers, vegetables, and shellfish. These motifs are rendered in a rich variety of shapes and colors against an unpainted, all-gold ground, resulting in a dazzling pictorial surface. The subject is an imaginary garden that could not possibly exist in reality, a space shared by the flora of the four seasons in full bloom.
Sōtatsu school. I’nen seal. Japan, 1620–50. Color and ink on gold leaf on paper. 63 × 143 cm. Mr. and Mrs. John D. Rockefeller
3rd Acquisitions Fund, Asia Society, 1985.001.1–2