Japanese art and meaning.

Each spring, the cherry blossoms return, brilliant and beautiful as ever.  Given their associations with rebirth and life's fragility , it's no accident that Japanese Buddhists embraced cherry blossoms; temples often planted sakura on their grounds.  The religion itself makes much use of flower imagery, including the peony, called obtain in Japanese.  The hosoge, an imaginary Buddhist flower, is even modeled after the peony.  Its imagery is also found in designs at Shinto shrines. In China, as in Japan, the peony is called the King of Flowers , with connotations of nobility, honor and beauty .  Legend states that more than a thousand years ago, a Chinese empress known by an unfortunate name that translates as "Horse-Faced Lady" prayed to an enormous statue of Kannon, the goddess of mercy, located in faraway Japan at a Buddhist temple in Nara called Hasedera.  Horse Face's wish was granted, and she became a ravishing beauty.  The now-st...

Tattoo motifs of wind and water; like those of bamboo and pine, are trans-seasonal.  They are often employed as unifying elements across the background of a tattoo.  Connecting different tattoo elements with an overarching design is a defining element of Japanese tattoos; this is an important difference compared to Western tattoos, which traditionally are isolated images on the skin.  Wind and water motifs make that connection.