Autumn Flowerbaskets (Important Cultural Property)

Ogata Kenzan learned pottery from the great Kyoto ceramic artist Nonomura Ninsei, and opened his own kiln in 1699. With help from his elder brother Ogata Korin (1658-1716), Kenzan fused the worlds of pottery and painting, creating brilliant food vessels that gained wide praise. As he neared seventy years old, Kenzan left his ceramics studio to his adopted son, and began painting purely graphic works in earnest. This work, Autumn Flowerbaskets, is among Kenzan's most representative paintings. Three baskets filled with a jumble of dewy autumn grasses and flowers are depicted. Augmented by a waka poem reading, "A thousand flower varieties disperse their collective charms of scent and color through the field's dew," this painting illustrates the lovely, yet vaguely somber feel of an autumn field.