Water Lilies

Ohara Koson was a very prolific Japanese painter and woodblock print designer of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, creating around 500 prints in his lifetime. He was famous as a master of kachō-e (bird-and-flower) designs. Because the beauty of today's woodcut itself leaves me speechless, we will tell you a bit about kachō-e.

Kachō-e was an important subset of the genre of ukiyo-e prints. Their popularity was due in part to their reflection of traditional Japanese values and aesthetics, which placed a high value on harmony with nature. The prints were often imbued with symbolic and allegorical meanings, such as the association of certain birds or flowers with specific seasons or qualities. In this way, kachō-e prints served not only as beautiful works of art but also as expressions of cultural values and beliefs, like the principles of Shinto and Buddhist traditions.

If you love these beautiful water lilies as much as we do, please check our Japanese Art 50 Postcards Set; you will find a postcard with this amazing woodcut in the set!

P.S. Can you guess who painted the most famous paintings of water lilies? Delve into Claude Monet's masterpiece!