Page 348 - Edo: Art in Japan, 1615–1868

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Maruyama Ôkyo (1733 -1795)
Rabbits and Horsetail

Dated 1786
Hanging scroll; ink and color on silk
104.5 X42 (4lV8X l6V2)
Shizuoka Prefectural Museum of Art

• Maruyama Ôkyo, who painted for
Kyoto's urbane merchant class as well
as for the imperial court, offered his
clients a fresh alternative to the often
static pictorial formulas manufac- 347
tured by the dominant Kano school.
Ôkyo trained under a Kano artist but
went on to develop his own style
based on direct observation rather
than painting manuals or other pic-
tures. He has been called Japan's first
true "realist" painter.

The rabbits and tokusa grass, or horse-
tail, in this hanging scroll seem to
have been glimpsed in their natural
habitat, attesting to the acuity of the
artist's eye. The timid crouch of the
rabbits, their proportions and color-
ing, and the details of their eyes and
fur demonstrate a thorough study of
their anatomy and behavior. Set
against the background of the vertical
grass, the animals are shown from
three distinct angles—profile, frontal,
and back views — as seen in many of
Ôkyo's sketches from nature.
Rabbits were a popular motif in the
Edo period and frequently show up in
paintings as well as in designs for
porcelains, samurai helmets, netsuke,
and kimono. The rabbit-and-horsetail
motif itself seems to have been a
favored combination, appearing often
on eighteenth-century men's and
women's clothing, for example. The
tokusa carries associations with the
no play Tokusa, a moving story of the
reunion of a son with his father. Rep-
resentations of the play often include
a full moon, perhaps indicated in
Ôkyo's painting by the rabbits, which
are traditional symbols of moonlight
in Japan. Despite his reputation for
being a painter chiefly concerned
with naturalistic representation, Ôkyo
may be making a subtle literary allu-
sion in this painting. MM
198