Ryōtai Tatebe Galleries

Ryōtai was strongly influenced by a Chinese style practiced largely by amateur painters. Artists using this style did not draw the true shapes and colors of objects but instead used monochromatic, cursive brushstrokes to depict the essence of objects as they saw them. As a result, Ryōtai's flowers and birds are far from true to life. He included many pictures of semi-abstract flowers and (or) birds in the three woodblock-printed picture books whose titles are shown below. Click on a title to see the book's flower-bird pictures.