Page 343 - Edo: Art in Japan, 1615–1868

194
Itó Jakuchü (1716 -1800)
Tree and Fowl
Hanging scroll; ink and color on silk
135 x 67.5 (53 Vs x 26 Vs)
Private Collection, Osaka

• In this painting a brightly plumed
rooster struts past a hen that seems
to lower its head demurely. Pairs of
birds perch in the branches of a
tree above, and a type of magnolia
342
(shidekobushi) blooms in the lower
right corner.

This work shares a nearly identical
composition with two other paintings
by Jakuchü (Sannomaru Museum
of the Imperial Collections; and the
Los Angeles County Museum of Art,
Shin'enkan Collection). Similarities
in the placement and dramatic pose
of the domineering rooster, with its
flamboyant neck and tail plumes,
paired with a cowering hen suggest
the use of a common model for all
three paintings. Yet in the other two
works Jakuchü replaced the tree with
a hydrangea to create a denser, more
colorful picture surface, particularly
in the Sannomaru painting, which
belongs to Jakuchü's thirty-scroll
masterpiece, the Colorful Realm of
Living Beings. In the version seen
here, the rooster's pose is not quite as
streamlined, and, pushed to the left
edge, he must share the stage with
the other elements of the composi-
tion. The rooster lacks the tense vital-
ity of the other versions, while the
hen turns toward him somewhat
awkwardly. A more thorough study
is needed, but Tree and Fowl appears
to share marked stylistic affinities
with such Nagasaki-school works as
Kumashiro Yuhi's Flowers and Birds
screens (Tokugawa Museum). It is
provisionally suggested that the
present work is an early composition
that Jakuchü reworked later in his
career, after achieving a more mature
artistry. MM

194