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Your galleryBanana Plant and Chrysanthemum
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Look at the banana leaves, laid in with broad washes of grey ink, then at the spidery chrysanthemum blossoms and blue-green leaves beneath them.
Tsubaki Chinzan studied with Watanabe Kazan, who brought touches of Western realism into his painting, and the Minneapolis Institute of Art suggests that Chinzan’s careful study of nature reflects that teaching. He was known for birds and flowers painted in washes without outlines. In this small sheet from the last decade of his life, a broad banana leaf arches over autumn chrysanthemums, with an inscription at upper left.
ink and color on paper · Sheet: 28 x 34.3 cm · Cleveland Museum of Art
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Details and source
- Museum title
- Banana Plant and Chrysanthemum
- Artist
- Tsubaki Chinzan (Japanese, 1801–1854)
- Date
- c. 1845–54
- Medium
- ink and color on paper
- Dimensions
- Sheet: 28 x 34.3 cm (11 x 13 1/2 in.)
- Credit line
- The Kelvin Smith Collection, given by Mrs. Kelvin Smith
- Image license
- CC0 1.0 · Public domain
- Museum record
- Cleveland Museum of Art
Artist’s life 1801–1854
View in the AtlasGaller’s rooms and hanging scale are imagined. The image is the museum’s original digital reproduction.