Page 104 - Designing_Nature_The_Rinpa_Aesthetic_in_Japanese_Art Metropolitan Museum PUB

compartmented box), an excellent demonstration of the Meiji-period Rinpa revival
(cat. 39). The model he used was drawn directly from the woodblock-printed

drawing manual One Hundred Newly Selected Designs by Kōrin (Kōrin shinsen
hyakuzu), published in 1864. Kamisaka Sekka likewise drew inspiration from earlier
paintings by Rinpa masters. A set of painted sliding-door panels ( fusuma-e) by
Sekka embellished with gold and silver pigment has waves on one side and bam-

boo on the other (cat. 41). Among Sekka’s most memorable images, and one that
fulsomely encapsulates the graphic power of the modern Rinpa aesthetic, is his
celebrated rendition of a cresting wave against a silver moon (cat. 42).
Stylized wave motifs were standard fare for textile designers, who often drew
inspiration from Rinpa picture books. A hand-painted silk woman’s summer

robe from the second quarter of the twentieth century is decorated with scenes of
cormorant fishing (cat. 40). The background pattern of swirling water, a synco-
pated reenvisioning of native Rinpa and exotic Art Nouveau styles, is woven into

the luxurious fabric. Another woman’s silk kimono from about the same time
features a gold- and silver-painted flowing stream shimmering against the under-
lying woven water pattern (cat. 43). Such elegant kimonos would have been
fastened using an obi (sash) of varying width and length (depending on the for-
mality of the occasion), often boldly patterned either to complement or contrast

dramatically with the garment it girded. The wave-patterned obi included here, a
technical tour de force constructed with silk and metallic threads, was no doubt
commissioned by a woman who wanted to “dress to impress” (cat. 44).

In recent decades, the Rinpa wave motif has continued to echo in the works
of contemporary Japanese artists, often in unexpected ways. The ceramic artist
Nakamura Takuo softened the rough, unsmoothed surfaces of a water jar with
an abstract design of waves borrowed from a Rinpa pattern book (cat. 45).
Okada Yūji, who often works in a traditional Rinpa idiom, achieved a more

abstract, luxurious effect in a footed tray with gold dry lacquer (kanshitsu) and
inlaid mother-of-pearl (cat. 46). Contemporary sculptors Monden Kōgyoku
and Sakiyama Takayuki, who employ the traditional materials bamboo and

clay, respectively, are not usually categorized as Rinpa artists per se, but they
too address the theme of waves in their curvaceous shapes and striated pattern- designing nature
ing, achieving an abbreviation and sheer beauty in which the wave motif is
taken to its ultimate, stylized extreme (cats. 47, 48).

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