a painting of two birds standing in the water

https://collections.tepapa.govt.nz/object/1529390 Pair of white egrets., 1930, Tokyo, by Ohara Koson. Purchased 2016. Te Papa (2016-0008-24) Japanese Kachō-e ‘bird-and-flower pictures’ offered print lovers a charming antidote to the melodrama of kabuki-e. Early kachō-e drew on Chinese conventions and "aimed to capture the spirit of nature in connection with the seasons, poetic allusions, or religious values". Bird images often conveyed symbolic meanings – tsuru, the crane, for example, was associated with longevity.