MWW Artwork of the Day (4/2/16) Suzuki Harunobu (Japanese, 1725–1770) Plucking a Branch from a Neighbor’s Plum Tree (c. 1768) Polychrome woodblock print, 27.3 x 20 cm. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (Howard Mansfield Collection)
This print is an excellent example of Harunobu’s artistic taste —- reflecting nonsensuous tenderness and exquisiteness of figures. Casting off her sandals, a young woman has climbed onto her maid’s back to break off a branch of a plum tree growing over a tall wall with a tiled ridge. The two women are elegant and gentle despite their tomboyish behavior. The rigid and monotonous pattern of bricks in the fence is a foil for the graceful figures. Despite Harunobu’s depiction of these two young women as innocent, the expression “plucking a branch of plum blossoms” typically refers to a fashionably dressed female and even carries sexual overtones. The young woman wears a kimono (furisode) with hanging sleeves and a design of snow-clad bamboo. Her elaborately tied obi, or sash, has a scrolling floral pattern.
(from the MMA catalog)
More Harunobu prints can be seen in this MWW Special Collection: * MWW Non-Western Painting Gallery
In her hands the woman carries nails and a hammer to drive them into a tree to set a curse. Known as the ushi no toki mairi (ox-hour visit), the curse is cast in the dead of night (the ox hour is around 2 a.m.) and is meant to spite either a faithless lover or a successful rival. Usually, a straw effigy was nailed to a tree near a shrine, and appropriate curses were chanted during the act. Harunobu has omitted the effigy, and the woman is not wearing the iron crown bearing three candles that was normally worn on the occasion. She also does not seem to be cursing. Instead, she looks almost as if dreaming, perhaps of sweet revenge.
