Pines and Flowering Plants (Color on Gold Ground Paper; two-panel screen)

A Pair of Two-Panel Screens, National Treasure since 1952

Pines and Flowering Plants, Color on Gold Ground Paper (two-panel screen) (紙本金地著色松に草花図, Shihon Kinji Chakushoku Matsu ni Kusabana Zu) is a Momoyama-period painting owned by Chishakuin at Higashiyama Ward, Kyoto City, Kyoto Prefecture, designated a National Treasure on 29 March 1952. The quantity is one pair, the category painting, the designation number 00042. Nothing is designated as an appendage.

The Agency for Cultural Affairs leaves the field for designation as an Important Cultural Property blank, so the work went to National Treasure without that earlier step, the tenth such case among the properties covered here.

The commentary reads: a work of the Momoyama period. This is the seventh one-sentence commentary among the properties covered here. The fields for artist, dimensions, era and year are all blank.

A Slash in the Title Marks an Empty Field

The way the title is written repays attention. The Agency records it with a slash inside the angle brackets and nothing before that slash.

In the Agency's convention, the angle brackets hold the artist and the form, divided by the slash. In a title such as Arhats, color on silk, by Jin Dashou, the artist stands before the slash and the space after it is empty.

Here it is the other way round: nothing before the slash, and two-panel screen after it. That no artist is recorded shows in the title itself.

The artist field in the national database is blank as well. Accounts elsewhere attribute the work to the school of Hasegawa Tohaku, but the Agency records no artist.

The way titles are written is built to show where the record is empty.

The Same Subject Recorded in Another Form

Among the related entries stands another property under the same title.

That one is recorded as four panels pasted to the alcove and two pasted to the wall, so it is fixed to a building rather than free-standing.

The same subject of pines and flowering plants is recorded twice, once as screens and once as panels pasted in place. This work can be moved; the other belongs to the building it is in.

The wall and door paintings at the Phoenix Hall and the paintings in the Daigoji pagoda were counted in surfaces because they form part of a building. Pasted panels are counted the same way.

Form governs the count. This work is one pair; the other is four panels and two.

Counted as a Pair

The quantity, one pair, is worth a note.

Screens made to stand as a set of two are counted as a pair. A two-panel screen has two leaves joined by hinges, and two such screens make a pair.

Counted by leaves that would be four, but the record says one pair. The same picture is counted differently according to its form.

Handscrolls are counted in scrolls, hanging scrolls in scrolls of another kind, wall paintings in surfaces, folding screens in pairs. Among the properties covered here, the sixteen arhats came to sixteen hanging scrolls, the Choju Jinbutsu Giga to four handscrolls, and the Daigoji paintings to eighteen surfaces.

The Agency records no dimensions, so the actual size cannot be known from the record.

Seeing It

Chishakuin, in Higashiyama Ward, Kyoto City, owns the work. It is a temple holding, and the conditions of display follow the temple's practice.

Screens are vulnerable to light and periods on view may be limited. Being a pair, the two are not necessarily shown together.

Chishakuin has a building for its holdings, and the temple's information gives the current position on display. Check before travelling.

The designation number is 00042, and nothing is designated as an appendage. The other property of the same title is distinguished by what stands inside the angle brackets.