Red and White Plum Blossoms

A red plum is placed on the right screen and a white plum on the left, with a stream of water flowing down between them, widening toward the bottom. The white plum hides most of its trunk outside the picture, while the red plum spreads its branches to fill the picture. Varying the presentation left and right gives the pair of screens variety and tension.

The plum petals are painted without outlines, in a form that later came to be called the "Korin plum." For the trunks, the tarashikomi technique was used, in which another color is dripped in and allowed to bleed while the paint is still wet. The swirling pattern of the stream has a rhythm as if painted in one sweep of the brush.

A scientific survey in 2011 confirmed that gold leaf was used for the gold ground of the background. Silver remains in the stream area, and silver sulfide has been found in the black parts. It is thought that silver leaf was blackened with sulfur to express the stream.

Ogata Korin built his own style while learning from his predecessor Tawaraya Sotatsu. This work was handed down in the Tsugaru family, lords of the Hirosaki domain, and after passing through other hands after the war, it was acquired in 1954 by Okada Mokichi, founder of the MOA Museum of Art. It was designated a National Treasure in 1956.