Minneapolis Institute of Art

Plum Drawn from the Mind

Baichi Dōjin

Date

first half 19th century

Medium

Hanging scroll, ink on paper

Department

Asian Art

Institution

Minneapolis Institute of Art

The practice of painting blossoming plum branches in monochrome ink seems to have emerged in 10th-century China, and it became popular among the Japanese literati of the 18th and 19th centuries. Delicate flowers budding from a wizened plum tree in winter carried associations of longevity, renewal, and purity. The inscription, shai, meaning “drawn from the mind, ” is the opposite of shasei, or “sketched from life”; indeed, this is a particularly free-spirited and imaginative interpretation of this subject. A variety of tones of ink applied in impressionistic splotches with a wet brush convey the vital splendor of a plum tree breaking into a profusion of blossoms on the cusp of spring. Baichi was a priest of the Pure Land, or Jōdo, school of Buddhism and was known for his poetry, calligraphy, and paintings of landscapes and flora. Asia

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