Giving Japanese Art as a Gift: Which Motif Suits Which Occasion?

A gift from Japan almost always has two levels. One is visible immediately: two cranes in washed-out ink, a red circle on pale paper, a bowl that rests in the hand like a sun-warmed stone. The second one has to be known – and that is precisely where the appeal lies. Whoever chooses a motif that matches the occasion is not handing over a decoration, but a sentence: Stay together. Grow old. Begin. The following associations have grown over centuries, and they are remarkably reliable – as long as one knows where convention ends and half-knowledge begins.

Why Japanese Motifs Almost Always Carry a Second Meaning

In Japanese pictorial language, hardly any recurring motif is purely decorative. The pine tree stays green in winter and therefore stands for constancy. According to the saying, the crane lives a thousand years. The carp works its way upstream against the current and thus became an image for perseverance. Some of these associations came into the country with Chinese models, others arose from wordplay, and still others from the observation of the animals themselves. What they have in common is that a viewer in Japan does not merely look at an image, but reads it.

For a gift, this changes everything. A Japanese work of art as a gift is a statement about the occasion and about the person receiving it, not merely a pretty object for the wall. So include two or three sentences about the meaning – on a card, handwritten. Without this key, even the most beautiful pair of cranes remains, to European eyes, simply a picture with birds, and the actual message never gets across.

Marriage and Partnership: Pine Pairs, Cranes, and Mandarin Ducks

For weddings, there is a motif in Japan that has been almost indispensable for centuries: the two pines of the Takasago legend. The Nō play of the same name, attributed to Zeami, tells of two pines – one on the coast of Takasago, one in Sumiyoshi – which, despite the distance, are considered a pair, and of an old married couple who tend them and belong together across the bay. What is meant is a bond that neither time nor distance dissolves. To this day, one encounters this subject at Japanese wedding celebrations.

Equally widespread is the crane pair. Cranes are traditionally considered faithful for life, and two birds in quiet exchange – one preening itself, the other keeping watch – are an image for growing old together. Mandarin ducks (Oshidori) stand for the same thing, only warmer and more domestic; the phrase Oshidori-fūfu still denotes, in Japanese, a particularly close-knit couple to this day. As a rule of thumb for wedding gifts: whatever is depicted in pairs is fitting.

Milestone Birthdays: Crane, Turtle, and the Character for Long Life

For milestone birthdays, people in Japan turn to symbols of longevity, and the best-known pair among them appears in a saying: Tsuru wa sennen, kame wa mannen – the crane lives a thousand years, the turtle ten thousand. Tsuru and Kame (crane and turtle) therefore appear together on hanging scrolls, ceramics, and lacquerware. Added to these is the pine, often together with bamboo and plum as Shōchikubai, the Three Friends of Winter, which combine constancy, flexibility, and early blooming.

This wish is personified by Jurōjin, one of the Seven Lucky Gods and the god of long life: an old scholar with a high forehead, a long beard, and a staff, in paintings almost always accompanied by a crane or a deer. Equally classic is a calligraphy with the character Kotobuki (寿) for congratulations and long life. Such congratulatory pictures traditionally belong in Japan to jubilees and to named age celebrations such as Kanreki, the sixtieth birthday, at which the old sixty-year cycle of the calendar comes full circle.

New Beginnings, Moving In, and Business Openings: Daruma, Ebisu, Fuji-San

In Japan, those who move, found a business, or start anew are given perseverance as a gift. The symbol for this is Daruma, the round figure of the Zen patriarch Bodhidharma, who rights himself again after every fall – the saying that goes with it is Nanakorobi yaoki, fall down seven times, get up eight. With the painted paper figures, it is customary to fill in one eye at the start of an undertaking and the second only once the goal has been reached. As a hanging scroll or ceramic figure, the same message carries over into a gift for a business opening.

In shops and workshops one also encounters the Seven Lucky Gods, foremost among them the pair Ebisu and Daikoku: Ebisu with a fishing rod and sea bream for trade and a good catch, Daikoku with a lucky mallet and rice bales for prosperity in the household. For a new beginning without religious overtones, Fuji-San and the rising sun are well suited. It is not without reason that Mount Fuji, appearing in the year's first dream, is considered the best of all omens – ahead of the hawk and the eggplant, in that order.

Exams, Career Starts, and Major Undertakings: Calligraphy and Enso

For people facing something ahead of them, Zen calligraphy is the most sustaining gift – provided the phrase holds up in everyday life. Sayings such as Nichinichi kore kōjitsu, "Every day is a good day," work because they promise nothing and yet still carry weight. What matters is that the translation is supplied along with it, and that it is honest: many of these lines come from kōan collections and mean something more precise than their short German rendering suggests. A hanging scroll with four characters that cannot be interpreted remains silent on the wall.

The enso, the circle drawn with one or two brushstrokes, is perhaps the most beautiful image for a beginning. It stands for completion and openness at once: drawn closed it appears as a whole, drawn with a gap it appears as a form that is not yet finished and need not be. Anyone wishing to celebrate a passed exam will find a fitting counterpart in the carp – the fish that climbs the waterfall is called Tōryūmon in Japanese, Dragon's Gate, and to this day signifies the hurdle that is hard to overcome.

Birth and Childhood: Hina Dolls, Carp, and Sparrows

For Hina-Matsuri on March 3, the Doll Festival, households in Japan with daughters set up the Hina dolls: at the top the Dairi-bina, the imperial couple in court robes, and below them court ladies, musicians, and attendants. For a girl's first festival, the dolls are a traditional gift from the grandparents – a complete set, however, is costly and requires a great deal of space. A kakemono with a Hina motif is the lighter alternative: it can be hung up for the season and kept rolled up the rest of the year.

For boys, the carp belongs to May 5, when the carp banners called Koinobori fly in the wind; as a painted motif it carries the same message of strength and perseverance. And then there are the sparrows, which appear by the dozen in Japanese painting, mostly in small groups among stalks and branches. They promise nothing grand. Precisely for this reason they make a good gift for a child's room or for a household in which a great deal of change is happening at once.

How Close Are You to the Person You're Giving a Gift To?

Alongside the occasion, closeness determines the right format. A guinomi, the small sake cup, is a personal gift for people you know well: it fits in one hand, gets used, and changes in the process – a porous Hagi ware or Shino ware cup takes on color over the years. Anyone who wants to buy a Japanese sake cup should pay attention to weight and lip edge, since both are felt with every sip. A set of tokkuri (sake flask) and several cups is the sociable variant, for instance as a housewarming gift.

A chawan (tea bowl) is trickier than it looks. Anyone who practices the way of tea has strong preferences for shape, weight, and glaze; for these people, it is better to buy together. As a gift for someone who simply enjoys drinking tea, however, it is ideal. A kakemono (hanging scroll), finally, is the great gift. It needs wall space, a little willingness to care for it, and the attention of the person who receives it – and for that reason works wonderfully for people close to you, while quickly feeling too large for casual acquaintances.

Motifs That Call for Restraint

There are a few conventions worth knowing, without overstating them. Chrysanthemums (Kiku) are closely associated in Japan with funerals and grave decoration, especially in white; as a motif for a wedding or housewarming gift they are therefore often avoided. This applies more strongly to floral arrangements than to a painting – the autumn chrysanthemum is at the same time a highly regarded motif in painting – but the association is there, and it is worth keeping in mind.

The same principle traditionally applies to numbers: four (shi) sounds like the word for death, nine (ku) like the word for suffering, which is why tableware sets in Japan are usually put together in sets of five rather than four. One should not make too much of this. Much of what circulates online as Japanese gift-giving taboos actually originates from other cultures or has long since faded. When in doubt, the simplest rule applies: choose a motif whose meaning you can explain yourself.

With Japanese Art, the Packaging Is Part of the Gift

If a wooden box comes with an object, it is not protective packaging but part of the piece itself. A tomobako (signed wooden box) bears the title of the work on the outside, often in the artist's or workshop's own handwriting, and is traditionally made from kiri, the lightweight wood of the paulownia tree. It is given along with the piece, never replaced, and it is never inscribed by the owner. Anyone who sets the lid aside while unpacking and shows the cord is extending the moment of giving in a way no gift wrap can achieve.

Those who want to do it properly turn to mizuhiki, the twisted paper cords. Their knot carries meaning: a musubikiri, a knot pulled tight and not meant to be undone, belongs to occasions that are not meant to repeat themselves - first and foremost, weddings. An ordinary bow (chōmusubi) suits births, birthdays, and anything that is welcome to happen again. Red and white is the color combination for joyful occasions. Glossy foil and ribbon, on the other hand, belong to a different kind of object: next to them, a matte, irregular piece of ceramics immediately loses its sense of calm.

A Motif the Recipient Will Still Understand Years Later

The beauty of this kind of gift lies in its half-life. A bottle is drunk, a voucher redeemed, but two cranes beneath a pine still hang there ten years later, recalling the day they were given. Some recipients bring out the hanging scroll every year for the same occasion, hang it up for three weeks, and then roll it up again – which turns the gift into a habit, with the message arriving anew each time.

At densho.de you will find hand-painted kakemono with cranes, pines, Daruma, Fuji-San, and Enso as one-of-a-kind pieces, along with guinomi, sake sets, and chawan for smaller occasions – all personally selected in Japan, most of them with a wooden box. Take a little more time than usual for your selection and read the motifs before deciding. The occasion will usually already tell you what you need to look for.