The rise of professional painters during the late 15th and early 16th centuries also provided a stimulus for renewed Japanese interest in the academic Chinese tradition of bird and flower painting. Some Chinese bird and flower paintings were painted in bright colors, while others combined ink and lighter colors. They are noted for their extraordinary realism, in which intimate scenes from nature are captured with sensitivity and precision. Paintings of this type had been known in Japan as early as the Kamakura period, however, new examples were introduced to Japan in the 15th century as a result of renewal of official trade between the Ashikaga shoguns and Ming-period China.