Collections: Asian Art

A Cherry Blossom Viewing Picnic. Japan, Edo period, Kan'ei era (1624–44). Four-panel folding screen, ink, color and gold on paper, 39 3/8 x 105 7/8 in. (100 x 269 cm) overall. Brooklyn Museum, Gift of Frederic B. Pratt, 39.87

In Japan the seventeenth century witnessed an era of political stability that was characterized by an increased prominence of urban culture and a dramatic rise in the economic and social status of formerly middle-class groups such as merchants, artisans, and the lesser ranks of the military. These groups used their new prosperity to support new genres of art that represented urban life, particularly the fashionable activities of the entertainment districts.

The Cherry Blossom Viewing screen can be considered a very early prototype for ukiyo-e painting (literally, "pictures of the floating world"). Better known from woodblock prints, ukiyo-e portrays popular actors, beautiful women, famous sites, and such popular diversions as the springtime tradition of cherry blossom viewing. The highly fashionable crowd making its way across the screen is actually professional pleasure women (yūjo) and their clients, who are low-ranking samurai. While the scene carries various levels of meaning, romance is implied by the action of a woman extending a branch of cherry blossoms with a poem strip (tanzaku) to the men following behind.