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ii. the flowering of rinpa of talent to reestablish single-handedly the distinctive
in Later edo Japan style of Sōtatsu, whose reputation had fallen into relative
obscurity. This prodigious feat of creative self-fashioning,

It is in this sense that we can call the chief masters artistic reinvention, and art marketing reflects the genius
of this Korin school the greatest painters of tree and of ogata Kōrin, and it is fitting that the movement he

flower forms that the world has ever seen. With them, resuscitated is now referred to as Rinpa, the “school of
these by us somewhat despised subjects rise to the [Kō]rin.” Equally compelling is the story of how Kōrin’s
dignity and divinity with which Greek art revealed accomplishments were reinterpreted in the years, decades,
the human figure. and centuries after his death as artists and craftspeople

— ERnEST F. FEnolloSA, Epochs of Chinese and with no connection to the ogata family embraced and
Japanese Art 21 exploited Kōrin’s design sensibility in a wide array of
textiles, lacquerware, and applied arts.
What allowed Rinpa to flourish again in the early eighteenth
century after more than a generation of dormancy? Admit- Ko¯rin’s Life and Work

tedly, Rinpa never died out completely, and artists working ogata Kōrin (1658 – 1716) was uniquely situated to revital-
in the styles of Tawaraya Sōtatsu and Hon’ami Kōetsu, the ize and consolidate the aesthetic program formulated by
“founders” of Rinpa, remained active through the mid- to Sōtatsu and Kōetsu a century before. Kōrin came of age
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late seventeenth century. But neither of these socially well- in Kyoto during the Genroku era (1688 – 1703), a historical
placed artists had direct pupils with either the talent or designation (corresponding roughly to the rule of the

patronage base to perpetuate the dynamic collaboration that fifth Tokugawa shogun, Tsunayoshi [r. 1680 – 1709]) that
gave birth to the innovative aesthetic we now call Rinpa. came to symbolize more broadly a flourishing of popular
not even the most successful disciples of the Sōtatsu studio, literature, theater, and visual arts from the end of the

among them Tawaraya Sōsetsu and Kitagawa Sōsetsu, who seventeenth into the early eighteenth century. Kōrin’s
for a while carried on the tradition of painting flowers and culturally savvy father, Sōken (1621 – 1687), was the
grasses under the seals of “Taiseiken” or “I’nen” — both of wealthy proprietor of the Kariganeya, a high-end pur-
which were first used by the master Sōtatsu and subsequently veyor of textiles. Kōrin thus grew up surrounded by peo-
by his followers — were able to ensure momentum into the ple of taste, and as a young man he had the necessary

eighteenth century. 22 disposable income to interact with them and to absorb
In the end, Sōtatsu’s creative vision was perpetuated in the latest trends in art and fashion. From their father,
later generations not through one of his own pupils or both Kōrin and his younger brother Kenzan (1663 – 1743)

descendants, as was normally the case in the creation of a also inherited a familiarity with traditional Japanese
“school” in the Japanese context. Rather, we witness the literary arts, including noh theater, and no doubt an
remarkable circumstances of an artist taking advantage of intimate awareness of textile design, the basis of their
his family’s social connections and his own superabundance family’s livelihood.
a history of rinpa

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