Page 258 - Edo: Art in Japan, 1615–1868

140
Ogata Kórin (1658-1716)
Gods of Wind and Thunder

Pair of two-panel screens; ink,
color, and gold on paper
3
Each 166 x 183 (65 /s x 72 )
Tokyo National Museum
Important Cultural Property

• Although separated by nearly half
a century from the life and career
ofTawaraya Sótatsu (active c. 1600- 257
1640), Kórin found an inexhaustible
source of inspiration in that enigmatic
painter's work. After early training
with a Kano-school painter, Kórin
devoted himself to perpetuating the
style of Sótatsu. He concentrated for
a time on making copies of Sotatsu's
works, including his Gods of Wind and
Thunder (Kenninji, Kyoto).

The demonlike Buddhist deities seen
here are counterpoised on two screens.
The green wind god, gripping his bag
of wind, rushes from the right toward
the white thunder god, who springs
back as he hammers the drums on
a ring that surrounds him. Their billow-
ing scarves, flying hair, animated
expressions, and active poses imbue
the paintings with kinetic energy.
Compared with Sotatsu's original,
Kórin placed the figures slightly lower
on the picture plane and completely
within the frame, thus losing some
of the explosive vim of the deities in
Sotatsu's painting. But he also shifted
the pupils of the gods' eyes, giving
them a sharper gaze.
Benevolent lesser deities in the Bud-
dhist pantheon, the gods of wind
and thunder first appeared in Japan
in illustrated scriptures of the Nara
period (710-794). Sótatsu is thought
to have based his paintings on either
temple sculptures or narrative hand-
scroll paintings from the Kamakura
period. Versions of Sotatsu's Gods of
Wind and Thunder became a trademark
of later Rinpa artists. MM