Morning Sun in a Plum Tree with Nightingale | Nishiyama Hōen 西山芳園 | 1781-1867

Nishiyama Hōen was unable to achieve a great career because he lived and worked in Osaka, which was not considered an art center in the 19th century. However, he apprenticed in Kyoto under the great master Matsumura Keibun (1779-1843) and is considered one of his best pupils. From Keibun, he learned the precision of formal composition and was trained as a realist—in a tradition that traces back to the towering and generation-defining influence of the genius Maruyama Ōkyo (1733-95).

Nishiyama Hōen is more charming than Keibun – he has no qualms about choosing a seductive pink for his plum blossoms. He then places this color against the well-contrasting gray of the branches and accentuates the charm of the blossoms with delicate emerging green leaves. Furthermore, the pink of the blossoms – subtly set off – corresponds elegantly with the red morning sun, which emerges from wisps of mist and crowns the group of branches above.

The internal structure of the flowering branches is very similar to Keibun's compositions: A powerful branch begins dynamically in the lower right, diagonally traversing the picture to the upper left. As this branch reaches the edge of the format, another branch, laden with blossoms and buds, sprouts in the opposite direction. It ends approximately at the point on the right that corresponds to the point where the main branch originated – this creates a vertical sense of connection.

Copying from Keibun, a thin, somewhat inconspicuous branch with hardly any blossoms appears in the middle, on which the nightingale's feet cling to the branch in the millimeter-precise horizontal center.

Such dimensions are the epitome of a classically balanced composition.