Page 309 - Edo: Art in Japan, 1615–1868

163 164 emphasis on calligraphic line and the
Ogata Kenzan (1663 -1743) Ike Taiga (1723-1776) spontaneous pleasure of amorphous
The Eight-Fold Bridge Wondrous Scenery o/Mutsu flung ink, whose texture is enhanced
by the hard crust of the nonabsor-
Hanging scroll; ink and light color 1749 bent mica with which the paper was
on paper Handscroll; ink and light color treated. The written labels denote
35.6 x 40.6 (14 x 16) on paper
Private Collection, Kyoto 31.7 X 676.7 (l2 /2 X 266V2) objective phenomena, while the a
l
treatment
betrays
impressionistic
Important Cultural Property Agency for Cultural Affairs, Tokyo
wholly subjective interpretation.
Important Cultural Property
Illustrated page 270 The light touches of blue are found in
traditional painting, but the yellow
• Ike Taiga, one of the earliest profes-
• This simple painting of the irises applied here in an unprecedentedly
308 and bridge theme stretches the sional painters to disseminate the visual way imparts a fresh impression
definition of "landscape" to the limit. Chinese concept of scholar-gentle- of sunlight playing over the land-
man's painting in Japan, rose
from
And yet it is one of the most time- scape. MT
humble beginnings to national fame
honored and deeply beloved subjects by sheer talent. A prodigy at calligra-
in the repertoire of Japanese art, an phy, he encountered Chinese culture
episode from the tenth-century Tales
as a child. As a teenage artist selling
o/Ise. The protagonist, tired of wan- painted fans in Kyoto, he turned to
dering and homesick for Kyoto, breaks little-known Ming-Qing styles, taken
his journey to take a meal with his
entourage; the men sit by a stand of from Chinese woodblock manuals. His
work gained acceptance only slowly,
swamp-iris growing in a stream but by the time he died, the public's
traversed by an eight-plank bridge. interest in him extended to his dom-
Overcome with emotion, they com-
pose a classical poem with five lines, estic life; legends about his eccentric-
ity abound. Although he employed an
each of which begins with one syl-
lable from the Japanese word for iris, inordinate number of styles, his career
may be seen as a lifelong quest to
feakitsubata. The irises and bridge, infuse his feelings into his painting.
then, become the code by which this
famous incident is called to mind. Taiga traveled to the "Deep North"
(Dewa and Mutsu provinces) in 1748.
Ogata Kenzan, best known as a potter, He painted Wondrous Scenery of Mutsu
made a surprisingly large number the following year at the request of
of paintings, almost all of them done a patron in Kanazawa; it is, in a sense,
in his late sixties, when he suddenly a double "memory-scape" — the
moved from Kyoto to Edo. This work impressions of one trip recorded dur-
betrays the influence of his more
ing another. In the colophon, dictated
famous brother, Ogata Kórin (1658 - by Taiga and inscribed in the elegant
1716), in its treatment of the theme calligraphy of his traveling compan-
and use of puddled ink. Kenzan, how- ion Ko Fuyô (1722-1784), the artist
ever, imparts a witty twist by his revealed his sense of awe at the com-
inclusion of only four planks of the pelling scenery and his attempts to
bridge — two of them incomplete — capture it: "With both thick ink and
painted with a broad, flat brush in thin I splashed without inhibition, as
strokes reminiscent of freshly painted
boards. Over this he dropped the my hand led me."
traditional puddled ink of the Rinpa In actuality, however, Wondrous Scenery
manner. The empty space is filled, of Mutsu, structured horizontally
casually but insistently, by three along a watercourse, is the result of
thirty-one-syllable waka poems writ- the careful calculation of contrasts:
ten in Kenzan's own hand. MT between massive close-up views and
small forms barely visible in the deep
distance; between wet ink and dry,
light ink and dark; and between the