Niwa no Hanami - Chobunsai Eishi Art Print

Niwa no Hanami pauses an Edo afternoon at the second a secret changes hands. Chōbunsai Eishi lets it ripple outward. Two women lean close beneath the sakura, one in coral-pink robes and one in charcoal stripes fine as rain against a shoji screen. A hand drifts to a collar like a spring breeze.

This Japanese woodblock print catches hanami at its most intimate. Salmon blossom clusters burst from a gnarled cherry trunk. Behind the pair a pewter stream loops like a sentence still being spoken. Pale celadon hills roll toward garden stones and a lone fern.

Eishi was born into a samurai household and trained in the Kanō school. He painted for the Tokugawa shogun. Then he stepped away into ukiyo-e and the floating world, where his bijin-ga beauties grew tall and unhurried.

On the raised deck a third woman in sumi-black kimono lifts her face toward the petals. Ink-black robes stamped with a chalk-white family crest. Her hem carries its own spring with playful blossoms sewn from calves to feet. 

Hang this cherry blossom art print where talk runs late and let the memories of shell-pink petals drift across the floor boards.