A Sunny Garden by Mortimer Menpes. 1901. Watercolor. Source: Japan: A Record in Colour, facing p. 106. Menpes was deeply impressed by the role flowers played in Japanese life:
In Japan there are flowers blooming all the year round: the country is a veritable paradise of flowers. When a certain flower is at its height, whether it be the wistaria, the chrysanthemum, or the azalea, that is a signal for a national holiday, and, dropping business and all such minor considerations, the whole of Japan turns out and streams through the parks and through the country to picnic in the sunshine, under the flowers. [98]
Special mention is made of "the cherry-blossoms of Yoshino, the plum-trees in full bloom at Sugata, the wistaria at Uyeno, or the iris at Horikiri" (109), but wisteria all over Japan will be very beautiful in season, and here it hangs down over a trellised walkway which is festooned with red lanterns, at the water's edge. — Jacqueline Banerjee
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Bibliography
Menpes, Dorothy. Japan: A Record in Colour. London: Adam & Charles Black, 1901. Internet Archive version of a copy in the University of California Libraries. Web. 27 June 2019.
Created 27 June 2019