Birds and flowers [left of a pair of Birds and Flowers]

Artists of the Maruyama School of painting combined Western realism with the indigenous penchant for decorative design to produce works of great naturalism and pleasing visual effect. Nagasawa Roshū, pupil of the progenitor of the school and adopted son of one of its leading masters, was himself a master of this style. This set of paintings is an impressive example of his work and reveals both Roshū's debt to his teacher, Maruyama Ōkyo (1733–1795), and to his adoptive father, Nagasawa Rosetsu (1754–1799). The refined, precise approach clearly suggests Roshū's fidelity to Ōkyo's fastidious style, while other elements reveal the unorthodox approach of Rosetsu, who was fond of juxtaposing subjects of vastly different scale.