Page 163 - Edo: Art in Japan, 1615–1868

16 2 cat. 90
Kusumi Morikage,
Enjoying the Evening Cool
under an Arbor,
two-panel screen; ink and
light color on paper,
149.1x165 (583/4x65),
Tokyo National Museum,
National Treasure

enveloping misty moonlight. The extreme difficulty of these farmers' lives, indicated by their rude hut,
exists within the painting as a separate statement at a great psychic distance from their pure enjoyment
of the moment. Morikage's work in this vein broke completely from the past and became a model for
such artists as Hanabusa Itchó (1652 -1724), who in turn would serve as inspiration for the ukiyoe artist
Katsushika Hokusai (1760-1849).

The artist Watanabe Shikó (1683 -1755) looked to Morikage for inspiration in his painting Rice
Cultivation in the Four Seasons (compare cats. 91 and 92). Abjuring the usual Kanga-style rote treatment
of prescribed themes, he instead transformed the painting into a stage for explicating the life circum-
stances of the peasantry. Shikó laid out his lateral composition of a farming village like a bird's-eye-
view map, clearly showing the structure and function of each residence and the relationship of one
dwelling to the next. The attention to spatial layout, and to details of the figures and implements of rice
cultivation, exposes a finely developed empirical method. This analytical approach would become more
fashionable as the eighteenth century progressed. Compositions like Rice Cultivation in the Four Seasons