Page 11 - Bonhams Royal Collection Fine Japanese Art London Nov. 2019

interest in Japanese cuisine will be familiar with the As well as receiving a gift of Western paints and brushes
concept of shun, ‘seasonality’, the ability to pick and from Dresser, Zeshin might also have seen framed oil
combine ingredients that exactly match a precise paintings, an experience that inspired him to create a
time of year. The same finely-honed sense of the right series of large-scale lacquer panels with bold, unified
moment, either in nature or in the annual cycle of man- compositions and lavish use of the many new maki-e
made festivals and celebrations, shines out from many techniques that he had invented over the decades. We
of Zeshin’s most appealing lacquers and paintings, are exceptionally fortunate in being able to offer once
whether single works or whole series of album leaves again an example based on the Noh drama Hachi no ki,
or long, narrow poem cards. Zeshin’s pictorial piquancy the only known panel by Zeshin with an explicit narrative
also reflects a unique sensibility, known as iki, that is theme.
particularly associated with the Edo townsman class.
Defined by Gōke as ‘light and unconstrained, gallant The leaders of the new government, recognising the
but not obstinate, playful but never tiresome, assertive soft-power potential of Japan’s traditional (as well as not-
but not argumentative, standing on one's honour and so-traditional) arts and crafts, frequently commissioned
thinking nothing of one's own safety, standing on Zeshin to execute commissions for international
the side of the weak against the strong’ (Gōke 1981a, exhibitions or imperial palaces and in the year before he
p. 5), the qualities of iki are on display in many works died he was even named one of the first Teishitsu Gigeiin
introduced here: The quirky, non-samurai heroism of (Artist-Craftsmen to the Imperial Household, a forerunner
Shōki the Demon-queller; the ironic use of a cooking of today’s Living National Treasures). His many awards
ingredient and a rat’s footprint on the fitting for a sword; and their ponderous accompanying citations, composed
or the teasing placement of a butterbur leaf on the top of by the art bureaucrats of the day, have led some modern
a medicine case. commentators to characterize Zeshin as a kind of official
artist, but in reality he remained—to the very last—true to
Zeshin lived in turbulent times. In 1867–8 the centuries- his own, iki, Edo, self.
old government of the shoguns was swept away by a
coalition of reformist samurai, and the youthful Emperor
was installed as a European-style constitutional monarch
ruling from Zeshin’s native city, renamed Tokyo. Japan’s
new-found internationalist spirit was a stimulus to Zeshin,
whose exposure to the formats and techniques of
Western art in the early years of the Meiji era (1868–1912)
had two revolutionary artistic results. One of these was
his development of urushi-e, painting using a brush to
apply wet lacquer to paper. This daring new method, so
different from traditional maki-e, was clearly intended to
emulate oil painting on canvas; to maximize its potential
Zeshin devised a whole range of ways to colour lacquer,
with striking results.

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