Buddha's Flowers: Lotus, Tokyo

Theodore Wores (1859-1939) was an American painter known for the paintings of Japanese life that he produced during his years in Japan, making him one of the first American painters to depict Japanese subjects from firsthand observation. Buddha's Flowers: Lotus, Tokyo from 1894 depicts lotus flowers in Tokyo in the precisely observed, atmospheric manner that distinguishes Wores's best Japanese subjects from the more exoticized depictions by Western artists who had never visited Japan. The 1894 date places this in Wores's Japanese period, when he was living in Tokyo and producing the precisely observed paintings of Japanese life that are his most accomplished works, and the lotus subject connects the painting to the Buddhist symbolism of the lotus flower.

Buddha's Flowers: Lotus, Tokyo is important in the history of American painting because it demonstrates the precisely observed, atmospheric manner that Wores brought to Japanese subjects as one of the first American painters to depict Japanese life from firsthand observation. Wores's Japanese paintings—combining the atmospheric effect of Impressionism with the precise observation of Japanese life from firsthand experience—represent one of the most accomplished traditions in American Japonisme, and the 1894 painting shows this tradition at its most precisely observed.

Buddha's Flowers: Lotus, Tokyo is Wores's American Japonisme: lotus flowers in Tokyo rendered in the precisely observed manner of one of the first American painters to depict Japanese life from firsthand observation. The 1894 painting shows the combination of Impressionist atmosphere with the precise observation of Japanese life from lived experience.