Page 332 - Edo: Art in Japan, 1615–1868

186 The Seven-League Beach was a famous artificial or topographical features.
Shiba Kókan (1747 -1818) site in Kamakura. Kókan donated his The bridge in the middle distance of
The Seven-League Beach painting, as he did other pictures, to the left scroll may be Kintaibashi
the Atagoyama Shrine in Edo, where (Brocade Bridge) in Iwakuni, a techno-
1796
Two-panel screen; oil on paper it served as both a votive picture and logical marvel because of its long,
5
95.6 x 178.5 (37 /8 x 70 V 4) an advertisement for his talents. It is arched spans. The precipice on the
right might represent
an image of a Japanese famous place
the dreaded
Kobe City Museum, Hyógo (meishoe) executed in the western cliffs of Oyashirazu, literally "Not
Important Cultural Property
manner. Using opaque matte colors, a knowing your parents," a site on the
lowered horizon, illusionistic space, Japan Sea so named because at high
• Shiba Kókan stands out for his forms modeled in chiaroscuro rather tide travelers had to run between
eccentricity among even the most than limned delicately with tradi-
unconventional artists of the Edo tional brush lines, and white clouds waves or be dashed to pieces on the 331
rocks. The name implied that those in
period, in part because he was also a floating in a blue sky, Kókan attempted danger would abandon the Confucian
prolific writer who dwelt long and
to capture the scene as he imagined value of putting their parents' safety
lovingly on his own accomplishments. a European painter might have repre- before their own physical well-being.
A resident of Edo, he began his career sented it. A proud flourish in roman By sacrificing the conventions of
forging ukiyoe prints of beautiful letters accompanies his signature in depicting famous places for a more
women in the manner of Suzuki Haru- Japanese. Although the composition "objective" view, Naotake rendered the
nobu (1724-1770). Insatiably curious, was later copied and popularized by locality of his landscapes ambiguous.
Kókan studied Kano painting, then Hiroshige, the priests of the Atago-
the vivid, neoacademic Song style of yama Shrine evidently worried that Instead of working within established
the so-called Nagasaki school. He the western qualities of the painting landscape tradition, Naotake focused
subsequently found his passion in the on displaying his mastery of western
might offend the Japanese gods, thus
extreme (to Japanese eyes) realism linking style and nationalism. They conventions, such as the extremely
of western painting and prints. In had the painting removed from the low horizon (the sky occupies approx-
his indefatigable pursuit of the new, shrine in 1811. MT imately five-sixths of the composi-
he tutored himself in the western tion in both pictures), the consistent
technique of copperplate engraving recession into depth, the large ele-
learned from Dutch books; he experi- ments in the foreground that push
mented with viscous binding agents 187 the middle-ground forms deeper into
to impart to Japanese pigments the Odano Naotake (1749-1780) space, the pronounced atmospheric
opacity of the unfamiliar oil paint — Scenes of Japan perspective and unified light source,
earning his work the epithet "mud Two hanging scrolls; ink and the direct observation of the water's
pictures" from his contemporaries. color on silk action, and the conspicuously west-
His studies extended to western Each 119.8 x 43.4 (47 '/4 x 17 Ys) ern models for the trees. Absent is
science; he was friendly with a num- Shógenji, Mié any sense of the artist's own feelings
ber of the leading Japanese scholars Illustrated page 278 toward the scenery. In their place is
of Dutch studies. He wrote and illus- the neutral reportage that the
trated treatises on astronomy and • In trying to conceive of landscape Japanese associated with western
made the five-hundred-kilometer landscapes. MT
practitioners
as he imagined western
journey to Nagasaki — on foot — to would, Naotake stripped these scenes
gain knowledge firsthand from the of the traditional Japanese conven-
Dutch at Deshima.
tions that had informed paintings of
famous places for a millennium. He
did away with allusions to the literary,
historical, or religious associations of
the locality; stock combinations of
set motifs (such as irises and bridge)
that lend clues to the identity of the
locale; and conspicuous identifying