Plovers Flying above Snow-Laden Reeds
1909/10 · Color woodblock print · Art Institute of Chicago
The whole print, uncropped, on a printed cream mat with its title beneath.
Museum-quality archival paper: heavyweight, acid-free, resists yellowing
- Printed to order, arrives in 4–9 business days
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This print
About this work
- Artist
- Kamisaka Sekka (1866–1942)
- Year
- 1909/10
- Medium
- Color woodblock print
- Original size
- 29.8 × 44.8 cm
- Collection
- Art Institute of Chicago
- Movement
- Rinpa
A winding river of deep teal sweeps across the sheet between two broad banks of white, and a flock of grey plovers flies over it in loose groups. In the lower right a tangle of reeds, picked out in grey, white and brown, bends under snow. There is no horizon and no shading, only flat areas of colour and the curves of the river. Kamisaka Sekka was a Kyoto designer who revived the bold, decorative style of the Rinpa school for the twentieth century. This design, titled Winter River (Fuyu no kawa), comes from his woodblock-printed set Momoyogusa (A World of Things), published in Kyoto in 1909 and 1910. Plovers over a river in winter were a traditional subject in Japanese poetry and painting. The Art Institute of Chicago holds this impression.
This print reproduces the whole work, uncropped, from a high-resolution scan of the original. The original is in the public domain.
Where it works
Deep teal, white and grey in flat, clean shapes, with a flight of plovers and snowy reeds. A modern-feeling piece for a living room or study beside Audubon's Golden Plover, in a black frame to keep the graphic edge.
Size, framing & materials
- Style
- Rinpa painting
- Era
- 20th century (1909/10)
- Orientation
- Landscape
- Mood
- classic
- Rooms
- living room, study or library, dining room
- Good gift for
- housewarming, anniversary, art lovers
Size. Prints at 18×12, 24×16 in — 18×12 for a shelf, desk or a gallery-wall grid; 24×16 above a console or sideboard. See it to scale on your wall →
Framing. The gallery ground is part of the print, so frame it without a mat — dark wood flatters the lighter palette; black sharpens it.
Pairing. Pairs as a set of three with other famous painting prints (10% off three or more).
- Restored in-house from a scan of the original print, cleaned and colour-trued at museum resolution
- Museum-quality archival paper: heavyweight, acid-free, resists yellowing
- Framed option: wood frame in black or dark wood, 12 mm wide and 22 mm deep, with a plexiglass front and no mat; the print is mounted inside and the frame's outside measures the listed size
- Made to order; colours may vary slightly from screen
