ART OF KYOTO

Gallery

HD digital reproductions from Kyoto

Wind God and the Thun­der God

Attrib­uted to Ogata, Korin
Owned byTokyo National Museum
Era Edo Period, 18C
Style Pair of two-fold screens, color on gold paper
Size 164.5*182.4cm
Image Source TNM Archives, Japan

Wind God and Thun­der God con­trol the wind and thun­der. In India, Wind God was believed to give fer­til­ity to every liv­ing crea­ture. This piece has glit­ter­ing gold leaves, a sil­ver coat­ing that has dark­ened over the years, and clouds painted with a unique ink tech­nique. It looks as though both Wind and Thun­der Gods, divine images of the power of nature, appear sud­denly, out of nowhere. With strik­ing color com­bi­na­tion and well-balanced gold leaves, this mys­te­ri­ous piece shows an infi­nite depth of the space.

Tawaraya, Sotatsu (unknown ~ 1643?)
Sotatsu is a painter who rep­re­sents the early Edo Period. While his pop­u­lar­ity and influ­ence was great, his per­sonal records are not well known. He worked on large-scale dec­o­ra­tive pieces such as Wind God and the Thun­der God, and pro­duced many ink paint­ings. He was known as a top painter whose clients included mem­bers of the Impe­r­ial Fam­ily and famous cul­tural fig­ures. His dec­o­ra­tive and bold com­po­si­tion style became a new form of paint­ing, which later influ­enced mod­ern Japan­ese paintings.

Hawks in Pine Trees

Attrib­uted to Kano ha (Kano School)
Owned by Nijyo Cas­tle
EraEdo Period, 17C
Style Three screens, color on gold paper
Size207.0*478.5cm (as a set of three screens)
[credit] © Nijyo Cas­tle DA

This piece is placed on the south side of the Fourth Room. A huge pine tree is depicted diag­o­nally with a glar­ing goshawk. This fig­ure over­whelms the spec­ta­tor with its dynamic com­po­si­tion. Between the clouds in the back­ground, one can see a pow­er­ful water­fall with abun­dance of water. The water even­tu­ally flows hor­i­zon­tally to the left and right toward the west and east side of the room, unit­ing the entire paint­ing as a sin­gle piece.

About the Artists
The Kano School, the largest in the his­tory of Japan­ese art, was in the cen­ter of the art scene for 400 years from the 15th cen­tury (the Muro­machi Period) through the 19th cen­tury (end of the Edo Period). They served as art pro­fes­sion­als for Oda Nobunaga, Toy­otomi Hideyoshi, and Shogun Toku­gawa, and placed them­selves at the cen­ter of the art scene by asso­ci­at­ing with pow­er­ful fig­ures of the time. They strongly influ­enced the Japan­ese art scene as a pro­fes­sional paint­ing group that dealt with a vari­ety of gen­res: from wall paint­ings for Emperor’s res­i­dences, cas­tles, and large scale tem­ples, to indus­trial art such as dec­o­ra­tive fans.

Flow­er­ing Plants of Sum­mer and Autumn

Attrib­uted to Sakai, Hoitsu
Owned by Tokyo National Museum
Era Edo Period, 19C
Style Pair of two-panel fold­ing screens, Japan­ese paper with sil­ver leaf
Size 166.9*184.0cm each
Credit[Repro­duc­tion]

This is a well known mas­ter­piece of Sakai Hoitsu. Orig­i­nally it was painted on the back side of Ogata Korin’s “Wind and Thun­der Gods”. Both screens are painted on sil­ver leaf on Japan­ese washi paper. The right screen has sum­mer plants hit by heavy shower and water stream caused by sud­den rain, while the left has autumn plants blown by strong wind and ivy in autumn colors.

About the Artists
Sakai Hoitsu, a son of the Lord of Himeji, was born into one of most highly aris­to­cratic fam­i­lies of Japan. He first stud­ied paint­ing in the Kano school, and then turned to the Rimpa school, under the influ­ence of more del­i­cate and dec­o­ra­tive style of Ogata Korin, whom he strongly admired. Hoitsu pub­lished illus­trated works on Korin and gath­ered a large and impor­tant col­lec­tion of Korin’s works. Hoitsu’s own work was notable for soft­ness, del­i­cacy, and ele­gance. Among his best works are exquis­itely painted screens with both gold and sil­ver back­grounds. He was also a mas­ter of the painted scroll. The scroll “Birds and Flow­ers of the Four Sea­sons” (1808) is one of his most highly regarded works, as is the screen “Flow­er­ing Plants of Sum­mer and Autumn” (1821).

Carp at the Gateway

Attrib­uted to Maruyama, Oukyo
Owned by Dai­jy­oji, Kyoto
Era Edo Period, 18C
Style Hang­ing scroll, sumi-ink
Size 107.3*48.5cm
Credit [Reproduction]

Accord­ing to a myth from China, Dragon Gate is a gate­way to suc­cess. Carps gather below a water­fall of the Huang River and wait to swim upstream. Those few carps that swim up suc­cess­fully become drag­ons. The piece cap­tures the scene well, using sym­bolic shad­ows and mod­ern sen­si­tiv­ity. It is sur­pris­ing to see an old theme such as Carps at Gate­way made fresh and lively by Oukyos paint­ing. This piece was orig­i­nally designed as a set for two hang­ing scrolls.

Maruyama, Oukyo (1733–1795)
Oukyo is a painter from mid Edo Period. His char­ac­ter­is­tic is his sketch­ing tech­nique. He focused more on the sketch of the paint­ing than other mod­ern Japan­ese painters. He sketched many objects in the nature includ­ing ani­mals, insects, and plants from var­i­ous per­spec­tives. His char­ac­ter­is­tic resides in paint­ing tra­di­tional objects in Japan­ese art by using basic tech­niques of sketch­ing while cre­at­ing dec­o­ra­tive pieces. His out­stand­ing tech­nique and approach­able style became pop­u­lar among his pupils. His school, the Maruyama Shijo School, has become one of the main schools that led to con­tem­po­rary Kyoto paintings.