Page 162 - Edo: Art in Japan, 1615–1868

major painting on the theme of rice cultivation as room decor, sliding panels attributed to Kano
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Yukinobu (1513? -1575). This painting by Yukinobu at the Daitokuji subtemple Daisen'in in Kyoto,
was a model for generations of Kano-school artists who reworked and reinterpreted the subject dozens
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of times for samurai residences and temples all over the country. The predominant approach for
painting rice cultivation and sericulture was a Chinese style of painting, Kanga, that employed borrowed

Chinese motifs, painting mannerisms, and building and costume types. Generations of artists who
wished to experiment with the rice cultivation theme found appropriate models in copy books drawn
from paintings by early Edo-period Kano masters.
The rice cultivation theme also has a Japanese precedent. Rice transplantation, which takes
place in the fifth lunar month, had long been a favored topic in paintings of the ceremonies of each 161
month (tsukinamie), always rendered in the centuries-old Yamatoe, or native Japanese, style of paint-
ing (fig. 5). The Yamatoe versions are distinguished by the Japanese manner of dress; the low, rolling
landscape native to Japan; and frequently by inclusion of dengaku dancers, who kept rhythm for the
women as they set seedlings into the paddies.
One renegade artist, Kusumi Morikage (c. 1620-c. 1690), was the first to take exception to the
fig-5
Writing-paper box with rice Chinese-based treatment of seasonal rice cultivation common to academic paintings, although he
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transplanting design, had rendered a number of standard Kanga-style screens on the subject during his career. Late in life
seventeenth century,
gold lacquer on wood with Morikage was disgraced and expelled from the main Kano school in Edo, whereupon he went to work
mother-of-pearl inlay, in Kaga for the Maeda clan. In Kaga from 1673 to 1681 Morikage witnessed the effects of the recent
1
14 x 33 x 40.6 (5 /2 x 13 x 16),
Los Angeles County removal of samurai from the land. Their longing for the past mirrored his own regrets for a lost home.
Museum of Art, Gift of the
1988 Collectors Committee In reaction, he developed a new style of painting farming scenes, based in part on Yamatoe style
and in part on direct observation of the workers on the land. His sympathetic views of the peasants
and samurai moving about their homes, working or playing in the fields, and transplanting rice to
the rhythmic dancing and singing of dengaku are unprecedented in their realism and warm tributes
to the rustic subject. In contrast to Kanga-style treatments of Rice Cultivation in the Four Seasons,

depicting little beyond the activities involved in agriculture, Morikage's paintings (cat. 91) take a
broader view. In one screen a woman travels on horseback, a man begins to pull his sword on a dog,
another man leads a bullock, and youths relax and wrestle. These images, which extend the length of
the screen, are given emphasis equal to the scenes of farmers engaged in growing and harvesting rice.
The farming images do not fit into the organized pockets of orchestrated action found in a Kanga-style
screen, whose subjects are copied from books. Rather, the scenes are spread organically across a low,
open plain, the seasons evolving seamlessly from left to right. (Morikage's occasional perversion was
to arrange his paintings in reverse of the usual right-to-left progression.)
Morikage's most famous work, Enjoying the Evening Cool under an Arbor (cat. 90), transfixes us
with its poetic quality. In this utterly unpretentious portrait of familial bliss, a peasant father, mother,
and child rest under an arbor covered with a gourd vine, enjoying the cool setting on a humid moonlit
night. The gourd-covered vine and moonlight are seasonal references to late summer and early fall.
This painting suggests the profound within the mundane, a feature treasured in haiku by poet
Matsuo Bashó (1644-1694), Morikage's contemporary. The square format and repeated angles of the hut
play against the round form of the moon, while the hard and bonelike outlines of the male figure con-
trast with the supple and fluid contours of the female and child. The gourds splayed across the roof are
painted clearly or roughly, and consequently seem to move in and out of focus, enhancing the sense of