Minneapolis Institute of Art

Pomegranate

Urakami Shunkin

Date

1833

Medium

Ink and color on mica paper

Department

Asian Art

Institution

Minneapolis Institute of Art

Although many Japanese Nanga painters created works based on or inspired by old Chinese and Japanese masters, Urakami Shunkin is known to have used his own sketches drawn from real life as the basis for his finished works. Equally comfortable creating large-scale landscapes and small, detailed studies of plant life such as this picture of a pomegranate, still on the branch and split open to reveal its juicy red seeds. Since ancient times, images of ripe pomegranates bursting open have been valued in Korea, Japan, and other cultures influenced by China as symbols of fertility and abundance. Asia

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