A hundred years ago this season, Japan gave the gift of 3,000 cherry blossum trees to Washington D.C., where they've become a nation-wide symbol of springtime in the U.S. captial. To commemorate the occasion, the National Gallery of Art and Tokyo's Imperial Household Agency are mounting the first English-language examination and overseas display of Colorful Realm of Living Beings, the landmark, 30-scroll series of bird-and-flower paintings by Japan's most well-known premodern-era artist, Ito Jakuchu (1716-1800). This week, The University of Chicago Press releases the exhibit catalog Colorful Realm, full of the painter's startlingly fresh images of nature in the Far East.