Red is royalty, proudness, heroic. It reignites a cultural
pride from its boldness and vibrancy. Peony is the king
of the flowers, and along with Chrysanthemum,
another family of vibrant ornamental flowers, they
are a depiction of longevity and the imperial throne.
Peony or Botan, gain its reputation from the excessive
numbers planted in the imperial courts during the early
Edo Period, making them a stable icon of wealth and
nobility from uikyo-e to irezumi. Interestingly, Japan is a
place where you have to be reserved and keep things
down from their Confucianism system. Everything is
supposed to take on a muted appearance, but you got
these bold colours, red, gold, green, brown and black
coming at your faces through Japanese tattoos, that
emphasizes on the glorification of the imperial throne.
When Japan opened its doors to the world, the
reinvention of education, military services, and the
relationship of the government and those governed in has
changed how the people see themselves and the world
they live in. The transition of a feudal society to a modern
nation state. With a centralized government, there was a
grand effort in the reduction of cultural diversity through
the popularization and diffusion of a wide array of cultural
symbols—not only physical objects but customs, ideas
and values. This is cultural homogeneity and it was the
start of a nationhood, a national identity amongst the
people. The idea of “same group, same place, same
heritage” spread across Japan as vastly as the botan did
throughout Asia, despite being separated by at least a
decade.
15
Motifs & Symbolisms
With external pressures from foreign countries leading to
greater national consolidation, there was a huge
encouragement in the restoration of the imperial throne
and the Meiji emperor was newly enthroned in 1868. He
became a symbolic figure an