Crows and Cryptomeria

Japan

late 16th century

Six-panel folding screen, ink on paper

Minneapolis Institute of Art

A crow’s cry is considered an ill omen in China and Japan, yet crows became a standard theme among Japanese artists from the 16th century onward. They may have been inspired by imported Chinese paintings of myna birds, which are not native to Japan, substituting the native species of crow instead. Painters of folding screens (which usually come in pairs) often combined a scene of raucous black crows with a quiet image of white egrets—the contrast heightened by the birds’ coloration. Artists of the Hasegawa school, which originated with the celebrated painter Hasegawa Tōhaku (1539–1610), specialized in the impressionistic handling of