Flowering Cherries in Art: Cherry Blossoms and Stream by Kano Eigaku

Unlike Sakai Hōitsu’s Blossoming Cherries screen, Kano Eigaku’s Cherry Blossoms and Stream in the Boston Museum of Fine Arts places the tree within the landscape setting. Here anchored among the craggy rock crevices suggestive of the Chinese painting style, a flowering cherry tree (likely somei-yoshino) stretches its branches over the placid waterway. In the background is a grove in full flower for some forced perspective. However Eigaku does not pander to the usual tactic of linking the trees to a specific location as other artists are liable to do. The image is just of placid, ephemeral beauty that makes one wistful once spring is over.