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Cherry blossoms appear on this pair of Japanese folding screens (35.113 and 35.114). Gold-leaf clouds partly cover and partly reveal the trunks and branches of three ancient cherry trees. Cherry blossoms in Japan represent a celebration of life’s ephemerality and acceptance of nature’s ebb and flow, underlying the Japanese concept of mono no aware, a sensibility that acknowledges both the joy and sorrow that come with the fleeting nature of beauty and, ultimately, of life itself. The brief cherry blossom season, which lasts only about a week, is celebrated every spring in Japan with cherry-blossom viewing in public parks. Folding screens made rooms-within-rooms in the large spaces of 17th-century elite homes. And with large amounts of gold leaf, imagine the screens reflecting the changing sunlight throughout the day and flickering candlelight at night.