Yesterday’s Asahi Shimbun reports that a pair of byôbu (folding screens) by the now-famous and renowned Edo period painter Itô Jakuchû (伊藤若冲) were discovered recently in a former house in the Hokuriku region.
As the Asahi Shimbun has seemingly decided to not bother translating the article and offering it on their English site, I’ll provide a translation myself.
A folding screen (byôbu) painting seemingly painted by the Kyoto-based Edo period artist Itô Jakuchû in the late years of his life was discovered this past August in a former house in the Hokuriku region by someone associated with the arts. Jakuchû (1716-1800) has recently become quite popular as an eccentric artist.
According to the experts at the Miho Museum in Shiga Prefecture, the two six-fold screens are each 159 cm tall and 354 cm wide. A white elephant sits on the beach in the righthand screen, while a spouting black whale is dramatically depicted on the lefthand screen. Near the artist’s seal is written “painting by Beito’ou of 82 years.” [Beito'ou, 米斗翁, could be literally translated to mean something like "Old Man of the Box of Rice"] This was Jakuchû’s Buddhist posthumous name, which he used as a pseudonym in his early 80s. Okada Hideyuki, a curator at the Miho Museum, said “works from the artist’s last years are rare, and from the point of view of learning more about Jakuchû’s achievements or works, these are very valuable sources.”
The Museum’s director, Tsuji Nobuo, a professor emeritus at Tokyo University and an expert on Jakuchû said “I am extremely surprised by this unbelievable discovery. Based on the image filled with vision and mixed with the figure of the elephant, the expression of the whale wrapped in the waves, and also from the seal, I think this is undeniably a Jakuchû work. As for Jakuchû research, this is a huge discovery.”
Read the original Asahi Shimbun article here (in Japanese)
Article from the Yomiuri Shimbun (in Japanese). Image taken from that article.
I regret not doing so earlier, in my original composition of this post, but I would like to thank Prof. John Szostak of the University of Hawaii, and the rest of the Japan Art History Forum list, for bringing this news to our attention.
Thank you, Travis, for posting the above translation. What a nice introduction to your bolg, which looks like a work of love indeed. All best,
Catherine Roche
PhD student, Japanese art history
University of Washington
Make that blog, not bolg!
Thank you very much for taking the time to read my blog, and to comment. While I think I get a fair number of pageviews, i.e. hits, I get very few comments.
I’m actually applying to Washington for an MA in Art History for next year.
Can I ask more specifically what you’re interested in, what you’re focusing on in your studies?
That is one strange-looking elephant. Is it maybe saying hello to the enormous serpent cutting through the water (I guess that’s the whale) on the left-hand screen? This Jakuchū fellow seems really interesting. I will have to run a search for him. Thank you for the introduction.
This is also a very lovely translation. Kudos on finding the readings of all the Japanese names. I am quite impressed. (^_^)
Jakuchu’s a pretty fascinating figure. I’m glad to have piqued your interest.
I like to think I’m pretty strong at name kanji, though I must admit that in this case, all the credit goes to Prof Szostak, who summarized the article quite nicely in his post to the JAHF list.
Nice! Thank you! I added you to the art links on my blog.
Thank you very much! I get quite few comments, and even fewer link-backs, so I really appreciate it.
[...] November 22, 2009 by toranosuke Thanks to JAHF for pointing me to this Japan Times article on a new exhibition at the Miho Museum in Shigaraki, featuring the newly discovered Whale & Elephant Screens which I discussed some months ago. [...]