Page 364 - Edo: Art in Japan, 1615–1868

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Nagasawa Rosetsu (1754-1799) Hayashi Jikkó (1777 -1813)
Monkeys by a Cascade and Eels
Chinese Children at Play
Hanging scroll; ink on paper
5
3
Early 17805 126.6 x 40 (49 /s x 15 A)
Pair of six-panel screens; ink and Tokyo National Museum
color on paper
3
Each 165 x 360 (65 x 141 /4) • Hayashi Jikkó (also pronounced
Private Collection, Osaka Jukkô) lived an ill-fated life and died
at age thirty-six. The handful of un-
• Few artists tackled as wide a range assuming paintings he left behind
of themes as did Nagasawa Rosetsu. reveals neither an affiliation with 363
In his short career he mastered Chi- any particular school nor a happy
nese and Japanese figures, including personality. They center on slices of
children, sages, witches, ghosts, and zoological life or supernatural
beauties; real and mythical land- imagery—fragmented, monochrome,
scapes; flowers, bamboo, and other often infused with a dark humor.
plants; and animals of every variety, His disconcertingly anthropomor-
from dragons and elephants to phized fauna so closely recall those
weasels and frogs. And with his pen- of Chinese madman-genius Zhu Da
chant for the unusual, he deployed (1625 - after 1705) that either Jikkó
them in odd combinations: a tiger in knew Zhu's work directly or the two
waves, an enormous bull with a tiny artists were kindred spirits.
puppy, flowers and ants.
The two eels seen here seem to inter-
Here Rosetsu has juxtaposed two pop- twine as they swim down toward
ular themes from the Maruyama- the viewer. With considerable skill the
Shijó school repertoire. This example artist achieved this foreshortened
of Rosetsu's relatively early style is effect by varying the amount of ink
painted with the flat-brush technique and by twisting the brush so that dif-
he learned from his teacher, Maru- ferent views of the eels are presented
yama Ôkyo, and it employs a fashion- simultaneously. The inky mass at the
able hybrid Edo realism, which mixes top from which the eels emerge is
western influence with Chinese typical of Jikkó's unrestrained touch,
academic techniques such as the tex- so abstract as often to be unreadable.
turizing axe-strokes on the rocks. As pure form, however, this area still
The faces of the monkeys, however, shows a careful control of ink tonal-
betray a hypnotic, anthropomor- ity, involving the application of
phized expression that is the product dry strokes with a broad brush, over
of Rosetsu's own wit. Images of wetter, almost flung, ink. Further
groups of Chinese children symbolize confounding the distinction between
fecundity and were often presented gesture and image is the artist's
to newlyweds in anticipation of pro- signature ("Ten Inlets") at right,
ducing myriad offspring to ensure the which, perhaps purposely, takes on
survival of the family name. Yet this the slithery quality of his subjects.
eccentric combination of subjects
Japanese eels, which can reach a
betrays Rosetsu's distinctive sense length of two feet, have been consid-
of humor. Is he likening the nature ered a delicacy since the Muromachi
of children to monkeys taken out of period, and they are eaten at the
the wild? MT
height of summer to fortify the con-
stitution. This painting, therefore,
would probably have been displayed
in summertime. MT

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