岡田半江筆 花卉図巻|Letter Enclosing Flowers

Okada Hankō

1831 · Handscroll; ink and color on paper · Asian Art

Okada Hankō devoted himself to Confucian studies and painting in the style of Chinese Ming and Qing masters, as had his father, Okada Beisanjin (1744–1820). This letter to a friend, written when the artist was forty-nine, offers a gift of flowers arranged in a Chinese style, a practice cultivated by Japanese literati. The amusing twist: the gift was not actual flowers but flower sketches, executed in a charmingly free manner that reflects the spontaneous, personal quality espoused by Nanga (literati) painters in emulation of Chinese scholar-artists.

Artist

Okada Hankō

Date

1831

Medium

Handscroll; ink and color on paper

Culture

Japan

Department

Asian Art

Credit line

The Harry G. C. Packard Collection of Asian Art, Gift of Harry G. C. Packard, and Purchase, Fletcher, Rogers, Harris Brisbane Dick, and Louis V. Bell Funds, Joseph Pulitzer Bequest, and The Annenberg Fund Inc. Gift, 1975