The Floral Interactions in Japanese Art: A Comparative Study of Ogawa Kazumasa and Nobuyoshi Araki’s Works

Japanese art has long exhibited an intricate relationship with nature, and the flower, in particular, has been a persistent motif, symbolizing not only beauty but also transient and philosophical reflections on life.

Two artists who, despite their temporal distance, have made striking use of floral imagery in their works are Ogawa Kazumasa and Nobuyoshi Araki. While Kazumasa, a late 19th-century photographer and printer, depicted flowers in a manner that echoed traditional Japanese aesthetics, Araki, a contemporary photographer known for his provocative and boundary-pushing work, presents flowers in a more subversive and sensual context. However, despite the differences in their methods and philosophies, both artists draw on deep-rooted cultural and philosophical ideas within Japanese art, particularly the concepts of ukiyo, ukiyo-e, and the ephemerality of life.

During my academic journey, I have extensively explored the works of Ogawa Kazumasa and Nobuyoshi Araki, particularly focusing on the interactions between painting and photography in Japanese art. My studies in this field have not been limited to my dissertation on the history of Japanese photography as part of my Master's degree at De Montfort University; I also examined these interactions during various professional research, investigating how traditional Japanese aesthetics informed the evolution of both mediums.

1. The Flower in Japanese Aesthetic Philosophy: Ogawa Kazumasa and Nobuyoshi Araki

In Japanese culture, flowers often represent impermanence, incorporating the Buddhist concept of mujo, or the transient nature of all things. This idea is closely linked to the aesthetic of mono no aware, which emphasizes a deep, melancholic appreciation of the fleeting beauty of life. Cherry blossoms, for instance, are admired precisely because they bloom for only a brief period before falling to the ground, thus evoking both beauty and sorrow.

This straigtht duality between beauty and decay of Japanese Art can be found in both Ogawa Kazumasa and Nobuyoshi Araki works; Kazumasa, active during the Meiji period, created a series of botanical prints that celebrated the simplicity and purity of flowers; his work drew heavily on traditional Japanese art forms like ukiyo-e, a genre that flourished in the Edo period, depicting the ephemeral pleasures of life in “the floating world” (ukiyo). In ukiyo-e, flowers were a common motif, an ornament, symbolizing the transient pleasures of life, whether they represented the beauty of nature, fleeting moments of human joy, or the inevitability of death.

Nobuyoshi Araki, on the other hand, explores these themes in a more visceral and often controversial way. His floral imagery, often intertwined with images of eroticism and death, offers a more complex and contemporary take on the flower's symbolic meaning. Yet, like Kazumasa, Araki taps into the notion of ephemerality, though he does so through the lens of modern Japanese society, where he juxtaposes the fleeting beauty of flowers with images of human desire, mortality, and decay. His floral photographs often appear decayed, damaged, or intertwined with objects that suggest eroticism and violence, emphasizing a darker side of the transient beauty of nature.

Ogawa Kazumasa, a key figure in Japan’s modernization during the Meiji era, is renowned for his pioneering role in photographic printing, particularly through his use of the collotype technique. Kazumasa and Araki are united by their engagement with core Japanese philosophical and aesthetic concepts. Both artists explore mono no aware, the sensitivity to the transient nature of beauty and existence. Kazumasa’s works, such as this Lotus housed at johnson Art Museum in the Cornell University collection, exemplify this philosophy by capturing flowers at the height of their beauty, presenting them in isolation as if to preserve a fleeting moment forever. The flowers in his prints evoke a quiet meditation on nature’s perfection, inviting the viewer to appreciate the beauty of the present moment.

2. Ogawa Kazumasa: The Flower as Purity and Precision

The floral prints by Ogawa Kazumasa stand as some of the earliest examples of Japan’s engagement with modern photographic and printing techniques, yet they also retain a deep connection to Japan’s visual traditions. His works, including those housed in the Herbert F. Johnson Museum at Cornell University, such as Some Japanese Flowers (1896), reflect an intersection of traditional Japanese art and aesthetics and Western technological advances in photography, showcasing flowers in sharp, almost scientific detail. These prints, capturing flowers like cherry blossoms, chrysanthemums, and peonies, exemplify an idealized, almost scientific approach to nature, showcasing each flower at the height of its beauty.

The Johnson Museum's collection emphasizes Kazumasa’s painstaking attention to detail, with his flowers isolated from their natural context, suspended in a timeless, pristine state. These prints, created with early color photography and collotype printing methods, reflect a fascination with nature’s perfection and the beauty of life at its most delicate stage.

Kazumasa’s approach to floral imagery is rooted in the classical ideals of ukiyo-e and botanical art, which idealize nature by highlighting its purity and precision. His flowers are rendered in a way that strips them of any broader context: they exist in isolation, seemingly detached from the natural cycle of life and death. In this sense, they convey a serene timelessness, frozen at the peak of their beauty.

The influence of Western scientific illustration can be seen in his exacting attention to detail, but the spiritual and cultural underpinnings of his work remain firmly Japanese, focusing on the beauty of nature in a way that invokes mono no aware. The flowers in Kazumasa’s works, therefore, are symbols of beauty at its height, untouched by the processes of decay or corruption.

3. Nobuyoshi Araki: The Flower as Eroticism and Death

Nobuyoshi Araki’s work, particularly his flower photography, presents a sharp contrast to Kazumasa’s. Where Kazumasa’s flowers represent purity and idealization, Araki’s are a meditation on decay, sensuality, and death. In his several works Flowers (1985-2008) and series Flower Rondeau, Araki often portrays wilting or decomposing flowers, placing them alongside images of nude women, bondage (kinbaku), and other provocative subjects. His massive use of flowers is deeply metaphorical, reflecting on the impermanence of life and beauty, the twine of pleasure and pain, and the inevitability of death.

Araki, often influenced by the urban culture of postwar Japan, transforms flowers into symbols of sensuality and mortality, their vibrant forms wilting, paralleling human existence. This duality reflects his ongoing exploration of the Eros and Thanatos (love and death), which permeates his flower photography; for him, flowers are not merely symbols of life’s fleeting moments of beauty, but also reminders of mortality and the darker aspects of existence. The erotic undertones in his work can be read through the lens of ukiyo, the “floating world” of fleeting pleasures. In the Edo period, ukiyo referred to the pleasure-seeking lifestyle of urban Japan—its transient joys, which inevitably faded. Araki updates this concept, using flowers as a metaphor for the transitory nature of sexual desire, love, and life itself. As regards the chromatic choices, faded reds, browns, and yellows, mirror the withering process of flowers, symbolizing the passage of time and the transient nature of beauty. This creates a melancholic, almost morbid aesthetic.

Araki's florals possess a raw, visceral quality, often appearing overripe or in the process of decay. This clearly plays into the aesthetic of wabi-sabi, which celebrates the beauty in imperfection and impermanence. The flaws and imperfections of Araki’s flowers mirror the flawed, transient nature of human life and relationships. His interaction of flowers with erotic imagery highlights the deep connection between sensuality and mortality, as both are fleeting, powerful experiences.

Flowers Series, 1997

4. The Intersection of Beauty and Decay

Despite the differences in their approach, both Ogawa Kazumasa and Nobuyoshi Araki engage with similar philosophical ideas in their work. Kazumasa’s delicate and idealized flowers are a representation of the height of beauty, frozen in time to be admired, but also removed from the natural cycle of decay. Araki, by contrast, emphasizes the impermanence and fragility of beauty by showing flowers in their process of wilting and decay, alongside images of human flesh, highlighting the inseparable connection between beauty and death.

Both artists draw upon the core Japanese aesthetic of mono no aware—an awareness of the impermanence of beauty and life. Kazumasa’s flowers embody the moment of beauty before decay, while Araki’s work shows the inevitable decline. In this sense, both artists are deeply connected to the concept of ukiyo, the idea of a “floating world” where beauty, pleasure, and life itself are transient.

Flower Rondeau Series, 1997

Flowers as a Mirror of Life’s Ephemerality. A dialogue across time

As already said, the floral works of Kazumasa and Araki, though separated by time and artistic intent, reflect a straight engagement with the nature of beauty, life, and death in Japanese culture. Kazumasa’s flowers, depicted in serene isolation, represent an idealized, eternal beauty, untouched by time. Araki’s flowers, decaying and interlaced with images of sensuality and death, reveal the darker, more complex realities of life’s impermanence.

Through their respective works, both artists invite us to contemplate the fleeting nature of existence, using the flower, a symbol deeply incorporated in Japanese aesthetics, as a lens through which to explore the deeper truths of life, beauty, and mortality. The cultural and philosophical ideas of ukiyo, mono no aware, and wabi-sabi serve as a common thread that connects these two artists across time, highlighting the deeply felt role that the flower plays in Japanese art as both a symbol of life’s most fleeting pleasures and a reminder of its inevitable end.

Peony Tree, 1894. The Victoria and Albert Museum (V&A) in London holds examples of Ogawa’s works, including Some Flowers, within its extensive photography collection. Ogawa’s ability to blend modern technology with traditional artistic ideals resonated with both Western and Japanese audiences. The photomechanical prints from Some Flowers highlight delicate seasonal blooms, such as chrysanthemums and peonies, rendered with sharp detail and subtle tonal variations. These works align with Japan's cultural reverence for nature, echoing themes found in classical Japanese art forms like ukiyo-e prints and ikebana (flower arranging). At the V&A, Ogawa's work is presented within the broader context of the Meiji period, a time when Japan was rapidly modernizing and embracing Western technologies while maintaining its cultural identity.

Further readings:

• San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA) – This museum has exhibited several of Araki's pieces, including "Kinbaku (Bondage)" and "Pseudo-Reportage"​(

https://www.sfmoma.org/?s=araki) and a Focus about Japanese Photography: https://www.sfmoma.org/essay/exhibiting-the-end-of-modern-photography-ten-artists-of-contemporary-japanese-photography-and-fifteen-photographers-today/

• Michael Hoppen Gallery: https://www.michaelhoppengallery.com/artists/32-nobuyoshi-araki/

• Victoria & Albert Museum: This museum showcases his mastery in photomechanical printing and his deep cultural connection with Japan's natural beauty. For more details on his works at the V&A, click here.

• Johnson Museum of Art, Cornell University: This museum's collection highlights the cross-cultural significance of Ogawa's photography during the Meiji era. You can learn more by visiting Cornell's museum page.