Page 24 - Designing_Nature_The_Rinpa_Aesthetic_in_Japanese_Art Metropolitan Museum PUB

Along with learning the rudiments of brush arts from number of impressive screen compositions, some based
his father, as a youth Kōrin is known to have trained with a on Sōtatsu models but others of his own, novel conception.
Kano painting master, Yamamoto Soken (active ca. 1683 – Among the works on a grand scale that appear to

1706). Kōrin, however, did not seriously consider making a have emanated from Kōrin’s visual imagination are the
vocation of painting until he had reached his late thirties, famous Irises (Kakitsubata zu byōbu), a set of six-panel
by which time it seems he had squandered his inheri- screens thought to have been created about 1701 and thus
tance. Rather than affiliate himself with the Kano studio among the first major paintings he attempted after reach-

and its orthodox manner, he was drawn to the Sōtatsu ing the rank of Hokkyō (fig. 3). It is assumed that the
studio’s works in the archaic yamato-e style made nearly a screens were made at the behest of the nijō family, who
century before. Kōrin was also distantly related to Kōetsu presented them to nishi-Honganji, the Buddhist temple
and is said to have owned some of his ancestor’s works. in Kyoto where they remained until they were put up for
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Kōrin clearly recognized the potential of marketing sale in 1913. Kōrin’s composition, in which clusters of
screen paintings on the theme of flowers and grasses similar abstracted plants are arranged against a gold background,
to those created with the trademark I’nen seal, which creates a compelling visual rhythm of repeated floral
during the previous century had become popular in Kyoto motifs and blank space that must have been considered

among wealthy people of all classes. Following in a family radical at the time vis-à-vis the typical approach of the
tradition, Kōrin also created exuberant designs for textiles, Sōtatsu studio artists, whose pretty paintings of grasses
and he made preliminary designs for maki-e lacquerware. and flowers were often all too predictable.
Evidence suggests that Kōrin, in his personal conduct, Kōrin, interestingly, went on to paint at least one other

exuded a joie de vivre that was said to be reflected in his col- magnum opus on the iris theme, Irises at Yatsuhashi (usually
orful works. Kenzan was equally talented, but apparently referred to in Japanese simply as Yatsuhashi zu byōbu), which
of a more somber and studious disposition. The ogata was acquired by the Metropolitan Museum from the pres-
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brothers occasionally collaborated on ceramics, with Kōrin tigious art dealer Yamanaka and Company in 1953 (cat. 84).
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sometimes drawing the pictures for the wares fired under For this slightly taller, slightly narrower, and more complex
Kenzan’s supervision. Eventually it was Kenzan, who out- composition, Kōrin made more explicit reference to the
lived Kōrin by nearly thirty years, who helped keep his “Yatsuhashi in Mikawa Province” (Mikawa no Yatsuhashi )
brother’s and family’s reputations alive. episode of The Ise Stories by including a zigzagging plank

Although Kōrin began his artistic career relatively late bridge. According to The Ise Stories, Yatsuhashi (literally,
in life, he quickly moved up in the ranks of painters by ally- “Eight Bridges”), located east of Kyoto, derived its name
ing himself with the nijō courtier family as patrons, and from the plank bridges that traversed eight streams that
by 1701, at the age of forty-four, he had acquired the cov- emanated like “spider’s legs” from a marsh in the area.
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eted artistic rank of Hokkyō (Bridge of the law). While no For this reason, the Metropolitan’s painting and others designing nature
doubt he made his living doing more conventional screens with a similar composition are nicknamed The Eight-
in the Sōtatsu-I’nen manner, Kōrin made his name with a planked Bridge, or Eight Bridges, even though artists rarely

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