Page 147 - Designing_Nature_The_Rinpa_Aesthetic_in_Japanese_Art Metropolitan Museum PUB

in the flowers and grasses done in the manner of Kitagawa Sōsetsu. The stream,
meanwhile, is rendered in the manner of Ogata Kōrin, who in turn learned the
basic vocabulary for evoking waves from the Sōtatsu-Sōsetsu tradition. Kōrin’s

iconic Red and White Plum Blossoms (MOA Museum of Art, Atami) is the quint-
essential depiction of trees in the Rinpa universe. In the deceptively simple com-
position, which extends across a pair of screens, a curvaceous river rendered with

stylized waves recedes into the distance between two plum trees, a format that
became the foundation for works by Kōrin’s admirers in future generations. Kōrin’s
younger brother Kenzan did his own rendition of a plum tree (and hollyhocks)
in the Rinpa style in a pair of screen paintings (cat. 61). Although they exhibit a
certain stiffness, the screens nonetheless effectively convey the spirit of the Kōrin

style and were recorded for posterity in the compendium Ink Traces of Kenzan
(Kenzan iboku) (cat. 62).
A characteristic of later Rinpa artists is the conspicuous use of tarashikomi

(the “dripping in” technique) to convey the texture of a tree’s bark, trunk, and
branches. A rendition of a lonely persimmon tree in exceedingly skillful brush-
work by Sakai Hōitsu demonstrates how Rinpa renderings of organic forms were
shedding their literary symbolism or poetic sublimity for a more naturalistic
depiction (cat. 63). Sakai Ōho’s Autumn Maple similarly captures the astringent

mood but also the coloristic beauty of the season (cat. 64). The brilliance of the
red and orange-brown foliage is effectively juxtaposed against the trunk, whose
mottled bark is a tour de force of tarashikomi. In Cypress Trees, a two-panel screen by

Ikeda Koson, we see one of Hōitsu’s pupils marshaling Rinpa techniques to new
expressive ends (cat. 65). The cypresses (hinoki) are viewed close-up, in a manner
not unlike Rinpa precedents, but the superb brushwork and meticulous detail
reflect a new concern with naturalism typical of the mid-nineteenth century.
The most important species of tree in the Rinpa botanical repertoire is the pine,

which populates several of the screen paintings made by the Sōtatsu studio (see,
e.g., cat. 3). In his own works, Sōtatsu was inspired by the depiction of pine trees
by the Tosa school artists, for whom the pine, rendered in stylized form, became

part of a visual shorthand for the Japanese landscape. In a marked rebellion against
the bombastic tendencies of the Kano school, with its big, gnarled pines in bold,
overbearing brushwork, Rinpa pines are generally soft, billowing clouds of mala-
chite green. Precedent for this contoured style was established in 1621, when Sōtatsu
trees

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