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Taiga would have taken Guo Pu’s lines from Wen Xuan, the sixth- still owns several of his works; one of these, Playing a Flute in a Boat,
century literary anthology on which he primarily drew for pre-Tang bears a related signature to the present lot, Sangaku gaishi shai 三
Chinese texts as noted by Jonathan Chaves, “Taiga and Chinese 岳外史写 意, and features a large inscription whose marked similarities
Poetry (Kanshi),” in Fischer, Ike Taiga and Tokuyama Gyokuran, p. 109; to the present lot include the combination of very large with smaller
see also Xiao Tong蕭統, Wen Xuan文選, Guoxue jiben congshu 國學 characters and the use of a splayed brush, resulting in thin lines that
基本叢書, Shanghai, 1936, vol.1, p.460. seem to frame the principal strokes (Felice Fischer, “Ike Taiga, A Life in
Art,” in Fischer, Ike Taiga and Tokuyama Gyokuran, pp.21-22; for the
The present scroll dates from a formative period of Taiga’s career Tenrinji painting, see cat.82 and catalog note, p.413).
during which, as Felice Fischer tells us, the artist “was engaged in a
dialectic with various modes of painting and calligraphy, modes of This was also a time when Taiga deepened his study of Chinese
Zen, and modes of poetry.” In 1751 he first met the great Rinzai Zen verse and painted a number of works on other classic Chinese literary
master Hakuin Ekaku (1686-1768) who exposed Taiga to a different themes such as The Three Laughers and the Eight Drinkers (Fischer, Ike
style of Zen than that practiced at Manpukuji Temple at Uji near Kyoto, Taiga and Tokuyama Gyokuran, cat. 32; and cat.31, based on “Eight
where Taiga had spent much time earlier in his life. Shimatani Hiroyuki Immortals of the Wine Cup,” a famous poem by the Tang-dynasty poet
notes that “ . . . Taiga’s meeting with Hakuin played a major role in Du Fu). A closer stylistic parallel to the present lot, however, is perhaps
the formation of his character, and in the Zen-influenced nature of his offered by the handscroll of Wondrous Scenery of Mutsu, an Important
paintings and calligraphies” (Shimatani Hiroyuki, “The Fascination of Cultural Property in Kyushu National Museum dating from 1749 (Fischer,
Taiga’s Calligraphy,” in Fischer, Ike Taiga and Tokuyama Gyokuran, Ike Taiga and Tokuyama Gyokuran, cat.24). Based on an actual place in
p.99). It was probably in order to meet disciples of Hakuin that Taiga northern Japan, the 1749 scroll takes a more literal, if still abbreviated,
first made the arduous journey to Izumo Province (present-day approach to the depiction of landscape but the overall composition
Shimane Prefecture) in 1755. One of these was Taiga’s host Ashizu and articulation follow a similar trajectory and particular details such
Keiryu (mentioned above), the Abbot of Eitokuji Temple in Matsue; a as the sailing boats toward the end of the Mutsu scroll prefigure the
work dedicated to Keiryu was included in the exhibition of painting same motifs in Universe in a Jar. Freed from the need to delineate a
and calligraphy by Taiga and his wife Tokuyama Gyokuran held at the specific riverscape, Taiga here adopts a highly simplified, sometimes
Philadelphia Museum of Art in 2007 (Fischer, Ike Taiga and Tokuyama almost childlike approach to his subject, perfectly reflecting the playful,
Gyokuran, cat.89). Taiga also stayed at nearby Tenrinji Temple, which liberating fantasy of the old Chinese tale that inspired this scroll.

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