Page 38 - japanese and korean art Utterberg Collection Christie's March 22 2022

涅槃寂静 | THE COLLECTION OF DAVID AND NAYDA UTTERBERG (LOTs 1-20)

Bonpo was a highly respected poet, calligrapher and painter,
renowned in his own day for his orchid paintings, although
his known body of works is quite small—only about thirty are
recorded, and they are thought to date from late in his life, around
1400 to 1420. His persistent repetition of subject matter has been
likened to a kind of spiritual discipline. There are examples of
Bonpo’s orchids in the Brooklyn Museum, The Metropolitan
Museum of Art, The Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, the Cleveland
Museum of Art, Minneapolis Institute of Art and the Freer Gallery
of Art.

The Utterberg painting is anchored in one corner by a rocky
formation with patches of moss, balanced by the artist’s inscription
at the upper left. Several tall blades flare upward, gyrating through
the shorter blades to create a sinuous and elegant composition that
is perfectly balanced, like a floral arrangement. Bamboo leaves
cap the composition at the upper right, and thorny brambles add
texture at the lower left. Only a few tiny, fragile orchid blossoms
appear. Orchids and rocks are cherished in literati lore as symbolic
of the scholar’s purity of heart, loyalty, and integrity. Epidendrum is
a wild variety of orchid that grows in East Asia, where it is admired
for its sweet fragrance and ability to grow even in low-quality soil.
For this reason, orchids are said to be like ideal gentlemen, whose
scholarly pursuits stand them in good stead even when the going is
rough.
Bonpo paints with swift, impatient strokes that cut across the
picture surface. One long, supple blade thrusts into the semi-
cursive calligraphy of his inscription to integrate the two elements
of his work. Bonpo is thought to have been directly influenced by
his older contemporary, the 14th-century amateur orchid painter
Tesshu Tokusai (d. 1366). Tesshu traveled to China, where he is
sure to have seen the work of the Yuan-dynasty orchid painter,
Xuechuang Puming (mid 14th c). By the time Bonpo takes up
his brush, however, the realism of the Chinese model has been
abandoned and the painting is more abstract and lyrical, with a
distinctly Japanese graphic, linear pattern.