Spring Field

In this work, the artist Asai enchantingly depicted a scene of a Japanese rural village from a naturalistic perspective. This is a major piece by Asai. This oil painting shows a family of farmers plowing a field as spring approaches. In the foreground, several people till the soil with hoes. Behind them, blooming white plum blossoms herald the arrival of spring, while farmhouses with straw-thatched roofs stand in the background. The artist has depicted a rural scene infused with a rich sentimentality. Asai Chu,a painter of the Meiji-era, studied Western art at Kobu Bijutsu Gakko, Japan's first government-established art school.

He was taught by Antonio Fontanesi,and the influence of the Italian painter can be seen in the rural setting and the brown color scheme. The farmers in the painting are also based on photographs that were sold to foreigners at the time. The subject and tonality may spring from external influences, but Asai's own superlative talents are on full display in the stable composition and so on. Vegetable Garden in Spring was submitted to the first exhibition staged by the Meiji Art Society, which was the first Western-style artists’ organization in Japan. It demonstrated the maturity of Japanese Western-style painting.

— Museum description: Tokyo National Museum (CC BY 4.0), via ColBase / Japan Search.