Square Dish with Spring Flowers 1700 - 1788

This square dish with spring flowers was made by Ogata Kenzan in Japan, sometime in the late 17th or early 18th century. Kenzan belonged to a Kyoto family of merchants and was heavily influenced by his older brother, Ogata Kōrin, who was a prominent painter and designer. The dish is decorated with underglaze blue and overglaze enamels, a technique that became popular among the aristocratic and merchant classes. The scene on the inside surface shows plants native to Japan, rendered in a deliberately naive style, and the outside of the dish has a geometric pattern in underglaze blue. During this period, Kyoto was a center of artistic innovation, and many artists experimented with new styles and techniques to appeal to the tastes of a sophisticated urban audience. To fully understand Kenzan’s work, it is helpful to research the social and economic history of Japan during the Edo period, when a rising merchant class began to challenge the traditional authority of the aristocracy. Art historians examine patronage networks and workshop practices to understand the place of an artwork like this in the culture of its time.