Silver Wind: The Arts of Sakai Hôitsu

WordPress seems confused as to whether this is my 500th or 501st post. Either way, I’m amazed to have reached this milestone, and happy for either this post, summarizing exciting upcoming events at New York’s Japan Society, or the previous post, on a serious academic dilemma, to stand as my 500th post.

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I have mentioned briefly before the artist Sakai Hôitsu and the upcoming exhibit of his work at New York’s Japan Society. I was very glad to get to see some stunning Hôitsu works at the Metropolitan this summer, and am sad that I won’t be around to get to go to any of the many events the Society is holding in conjunction with the exhibition.

Chief among them is a symposium scheduled for Sept. 29, which will feature some of the top scholars of Japanese art history in the world, including Kobayashi Tadashi – a top expert on Edo period painting, and someone whose work I have read a lot of, but whom I have never had the pleasure of meeting – along with Matthew McKelway and Haruo Shirane, both very big names in the field as well, from Columbia University. I hope there is some kind of transcript or publication afterwards that those of us who cannot attend might be able to get our hands on.

Prof. McKelway will also give another lecture on the subject of Sakai Hôitsu and Rinpa on October 18.

Judging from his style, and perhaps more so the immaculate condition of the works I saw, and the vibrancy of the colors, I would have guessed Hôitsu to be a Nihonga artist of the late 19th or early 20th century. But, knowing that he lived so much earlier, from 1761-1828, very firmly within the Edo period, I’d guess to place him instead with the so-called “Eccentrics,” people like Nagasawa Rosetsu who, similarly, produced works with a certain simplicity and cleanliness, but also with bright vibrant colors and dramatic content.

Right: A painting by Nagasawa Rosetsu, dated 1798, depicting the destruction in that year of the Great Buddha Hall of Kyoto. (Sometimes mistaken for being the Great Buddha Hall of Tôdai-ji in Nara, but I’m fairly certain it was the Great Buddha of Kyoto that’s referred to here.)

But, then, what do I know? If the experts call Hôitsu “Rinpa,” placing him in a category with artists like Tawaraya Sôtatsu, Ogata Kôrin, and Suzuki Kiitsu, known for their large compositions on gold-backed folding screens, then I guess they have very good reasons for saying so. Prof. McKelway, who guest curated this exhibit with the help of a PhD student specializing in Rinpa, is one of the leading Rinpa scholars himself, so if he and everyone else involved with the exhibit say he’s Rinpa, who am I to argue? What’s important is that his work is stunningly beautiful, expertly executed, and employs classical themes and references that give the works deeper meaning, making them all the more captivating.

As Rinpa works very often draw upon seasonal and classical literary themes, Prof. Haruo Shirane will be leading two events as well, discussing on Nov. 11 selections from the Heian period Tales of Genji and Ise, and on December 13 his own newest book, on seasonal references in the Japanese arts.

Meanwhile, Japan Society’s Performing Arts Department has an exciting season planned, as always. It includes a fair share of very modern/contemporary sort of things, but also on Oct 27-28, a rare opportunity to see Kagura, a sort of Shintô religious / folk tradition dance form.

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Spotlight: Sakai Hôitsu – Rising Sun and Flowers and Plants of the Four Seasons

“The Rising Sun with Flowers and Trees of the Four Seasons.” Sakai Hôitsu, with calligraphy by Kazan’in Yoshinori. c. 1820-1828. Ink and color on silk. Gitter-Yelen Collection.

Prior to last week, I had no idea that Sakai Hôitsu (1761-1828) would soon become one of my favorite artists. I was certainly familiar with the name, but I don’t think that I had a good sense of what his works were like, or what I thought of them. All of that uncertainty blew away, however, like clouds banished by the wind, once I came face-to-face with these three paintings in the Rinpa exhibit currently showing at the Metropolitan Museum. The triptych, depicting a rising sun with calligraphic inscription, flanked by flowers and trees representing the four seasons, froze me in my tracks.

The red autumn leaves in the top left form an imaginary diagonal with the stream next to the brilliant blue irises in the bottom right. Normally I don’t like to talk about diagonals and such, but here, across the void between the three paintings, it really seems to have a real effect, compositionally. The irises represent summer, while the cherry blossoms above them are the most standard symbol of spring; below the autumn leaves, in the bottom right, the distinctive shape of bamboo leaves, representing winter, can be seen.

It is these seasonal allusions, along with aspects of the overall style and techniques, that makes this piece (arguably) Rinpa. I say arguably because, unlike the Kanô school or the Katsukawa school, for example, in which artists studied directly under a master of that school, Rinpa is a much looser categorization of artists and artworks, as identified and categorized by art historians. The identification, therefore, of something as being in the Rinpa style is somewhat subjective. Rinpa artists are linked not by a direct lineage of students & masters, but by their intentions to emulate the style of Ogata Kôrin, who in turn was emulating & reviving the style of Tawaraya Sôtatsu and Hon’ami Kôetsu; Hôitsu studied under Kanô, Maruyama, ukiyo-e, and nanga artists, and, born roughly 50 years after Kôrin’s death, like most Rinpa artists likely considered himself a student or follower of Kôrin “in spirit,” if that’s the right word.

Yet, these Hôitsu works stand out from the typical Rinpa style in their spare use of gold, and the instead plain, blank silk used for the background. Most of the elements are comprised of a single solid area of color of a single hue, not an intricate complex of drawn-in details. While I find the intricate details in other works fascinating, and the degree of skill required to produce them truly amazing, it is this simplicity, this aesthetic of bright, bold colors, and a certain stark kind of cleanliness, that I find so stunning, so entrancing, about these Hôitsu pieces. The sun is perfectly round, and its red fades just perfectly, as do the reds of the autumn leaves, accented by the minimalist use of gold for the “bones” of the leaves. Nearly every element in the composition is described without black outline, but nevertheless retain a sharpness, a crispness, to their borders of each form that not only suggests the artist’s masterful skills, but which is a crucial element of this clean, crisp aesthetic. In these ways, Hôitsu’s work feels more like Nihonga than true Rinpa. Nihonga, or neo-traditional painting, did not emerge until the late 19th century, as the result of pressures to modernize (Westernize) painting, and to develop a “national” painting style, and also to preserve or keep alive traditional painting traditions; in Hôitsu’s time, traditional painting was very much alive, and was unthreatened. It thus certainly cannot properly be called Nihonga. But, similarly, Sôtatsu cannot truly be considered a Rinpa (“in the style of Kôrin”) artist since he lived a century before Kôrin; perhaps we can in a similar fashion consider Hôitsu a Nihonga painter before Nihonga. To my eye, the cleanliness of his aesthetic resembles the works of late 19th and early 20th century Nihonga painters much more than it does the dense, heavy-feeling, complex compositions of earlier Rinpa artists.

Hôitsu’s use of tarashikomi, a wet color-bleeding technique strongly associated with Rinpa, can be clearly seen in the tree trunk. But here, too, it is perfectly controlled. On one level, it is easy to see the tree trunk as a random blotch of color, as if one spilled watercolors onto the paper and it bled uncontrollably; but, this tree trunk is at the same time precisely the shape it ought to be, the shape it needs to be, and the bits of green, bled into the brown, seem also to be precisely how they ought to be, as if Hôitsu were able to perfectly control the bleeding of the colors.

The mineral pigments, or iwa e no gu (岩絵具), used in traditional Japanese painting consist of various minerals, ground up to a very fine powder, and suspended in an animal glue called nikawa. I am told it does not blend like oil paints, and in order to produce a different shade, one cannot simply blend paints on your palette or on the painting, but rather one must use a different shade. A friend of mine chanced upon a store in Tokyo recently selling traditional mineral pigments, and the walls were lined with jars each containing a slightly different shade or hue from the last.

Tarashikomi, developed chiefly by Sôtatsu in the very early years of the 17th century, is a technique by which watery color-bleeding effects can be created, as seen in the tree trunk here. Extra water is added, allowing the colors, which function much like watercolors to begin with, to bleed into one another. The colors still don’t quite blend as they would in an oil painting, but, the effect is certainly a beautiful and effective one. Some artists, such as Hôitsu, take care to have this happen in an extremely controlled manner. Some, such as Nakamura Hôchû, in a piece displayed nearby, allow the colors more freedom as they bleed, resulting in a much less crisp-edged final result.

Frankly, beyond this vague idea of the perfectly clean and crisp aesthetic of this Hôitsu triptych, I couldn’t even say what it is really that I find so beautiful about it. But even the calligraphy, though difficult to read, seems perfectly cleanly done. The characters are neither too large nor too small; neither too dark nor too light (for the most part); and, perhaps most importantly, the overall space they occupy aligns perfectly with the red sun, compositionally. The thirty-one syllable waka, translated by curator John Carpenter, reads:

あきらけき御代ぞと 四方にしらしめて てらす日陰影の くもるときなき Akirakeki miyo zo to yomo ni shirashimete terasu hikage no kumoru toki naki Praise for the enlightened reign of the emperor spreads in all directions, just as the light of the sun shines in a cloudless sky.

I’m sure I don’t need to say much by way of interpreting this poem. The red sun, of course, a symbol of the emperor and of his enlightened power and benevolence radiating and illuminating; the four seasons representing the four directions, i.e. all of the realm. But, while I certainly appreciate a poem that is so direct and that so clearly relates to the iconography of the composition, it is, again, just the pure aesthetic impact, the sheer beauty of Hôitsu’s work which I find so entrancing.

These and many other works by Hôitsu will be featured in an exhibition at Japan Society in the fall, which I am sure will be excellent. (There is no webpage for the exhibit yet, but when there is, I’ll be sure to post it.) Meanwhile, a number of other stunning Hôitsu works will be rotated into the Metropolitan’s Rinpa exhibition beginning in September. Perhaps I will have to make a special trip back to the East Coast to see these.

All photos taken myself, in the Japanese galleries at the Metropolitan Museum, exposure brightened using Picasa. The three pieces can also be seen, in official photography, lined up immediately next to one another on the webpage of the Man’yôan Collection of Dr. Kurt Gitter and Alice Yelen, who own the artworks.

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Rinpa at the Met

This summer, and through January, the Japanese galleries at the Metropolitan Museum feature an exhibit entitled “Designing Nature: The Rinpa Aesthetic in Japanese Art.” I was excited for the idea of a Rinpa exhibit – bright colors, silver and gold, things in the style of the most famous works by Sôtatsu and Kôrin. Seeing the Matsushima screens in DC last summer was a special treat, and I was excited for more of that here in New York.

Perhaps I should start by talking a little bit about what Rinpa is. Unlike many schools of painting in Japanese art history, such as the Kanô school or the Tosa school, in which artists trained directly under masters from that school, and solidly identified themselves as belonging to that school, “Rinpa” is quite a bit looser. The word Rinpa (琳派) literally means something like “in the style of [Kô]rin,” referring to Ogata Kôrin (1658-1716), whose style, techniques, themes and overall approach the Rinpa artists sought to emulate. Some Rinpa artists may have considered themselves to be followers of Kôrin “in spirit,” or to be working “in the style of Kôrin,” but for the most part, Rinpa is a term applied roughly, loosely, to those artists who art historians identify as producing these types of works. Ironically, or amusingly, Kôrin, in fact, was emulating the style and themes of Tawaraya Sôtatsu and Hon’ami Kôetsu, who were active in the very early years of the 17th century, about 50 years before Kôrin was born. Works by Sôtatsu and Kôrin focused on classical (read: Heian period) yamato-e (“indigenous” “Japanese” painting) influences, rather than the Chinese-inspired styles used heavily by the Kanô and other schools; they used a lot of bright colors, a lot of gold and silver, and little black ink outline; they often made reference to classical themes, whether relatively directly, by depicting characters or scenes from Heian period stories such as the Tale of Genji, or indirectly through the use of flowers and other imagery. Rinpa works also made use of such imagery for purely decorative purposes, employing patterns and concerns of composition with a particular eye to pure aesthetics; importantly, also, Rinpa is one of the few styles or movements in traditional Japanese art which extends beyond one medium (e.g. painting), extending into calligraphy, lacquerwares, ceramics, and the like as well. This particular exhibition focuses almost exclusively on paintings and a few woodblock-printed books, but, drawing upon the legacy of Hon’ami Kôetsu and Ogata Kenzan (Kôrin’s brother), who are both known more for their calligraphy and ceramics than for painting, the movement certainly includes a wide range of types of objects. I have a friend who specializes in Rinpa, and who I’ve been seeing frequently at the Metropolitan the last few weeks – so, my apologies to him if my explanation is too simplistic, or omits any key points.

I wish that more of my exhibition reviews could comment more heavily on the narrative the exhibit tells, the way it is laid out, the way it is organized and presented. Though I’ve never studied exhibition design formally, I find these sorts of things fascinating. Plus, it makes for a better post, a more organized post, which comments on the exhibition itself, rather than on the individual pieces contained within. But, sometimes we find we are presented with exhibits that, if they have a narrative, or a logic of organization, they are not very obvious about it. And so, there is little to comment on.

Rinpa can be really wonderful. But, it can also get overwhelming quite easily. Like getting templed-out in Kyoto. Each one is beautiful, and wonderful, and amazing, but see too many at once, and they all just sort of blur together. After the fifth or sixth screen painting of birds & flowers or classical themes, I was finding it difficult to sustain my interest. Mind you, this is not a criticism of the exhibition, so much as just me coming to recognize or realize where my interests lie. After passing by numerous true masterpieces that I’m sure would have been fascinating and eminently gorgeous for someone else, but which simply didn’t grab me (for whatever reason), I found a set of pieces that absolutely did. I felt I could have stood there forever. So entranced was I by their beauty that I am devoting an entire blog post to this set of three hanging scroll paintings by Sakai Hôitsu. Keep an eye out for that post in coming days.

Of course, there are still plenty of other beautiful works in the exhibition, starting with the Pix-Cell Deer sculpture by Nawa Kôhei. I’m not positive how this relates to Rinpa, really, but it’s a gorgeous, and fun, piece, and all the more attractive for the way it is displayed at the Metropolitan. This is the same piece which not so long ago was on display at Japan Society, as part of the exhibition “Bye Bye Kitty.” I guess someone at the Met liked it so much that he saw to it that the museum acquire the sculpture once “Bye Bye Kitty” was done. Of course, I cannot complain or criticize with the way it was shown at Japan Society, but the way it is lit here, the glass, acrylic, and crystal spheres which encase this taxidermied deer sparkle and shine in the light. The deer, furthermore, is situated between several folding screen paintings, each covered in gold foil, which provide an elegant and beautiful backdrop for viewing the piece.

Most of the exhibition, however, is devoted to paintings. As beautiful as any of these pieces are in reproduction (here on the computer screen), I never cease to be astonished to rediscover how much more beautiful they are when viewed in person. Digital images cannot relate the textures of pigments on a ground, nor properly the scale of a piece. If you do not spend much time in museums, I invite you to go and make a visit. Pick a painting and spend some time with it. Look closely at the textures of pigments and of the blank areas of paper or silk, and look at how they interact. There is something truly wonderful about seeing a work in person, and, if you get the opportunity, to see it without any glass or anything else between you and the artwork.

An anonymous composition attributed to followers of Ogata Kôrin was one such work. Though not the most colorful piece, perhaps even downright drab, when looking at it in person, all the fine details of the differing colors and materials and how they are applied, come out. Looking purely at color and pattern, it is a pretty monochromatic (or monotonous) piece. But add texture into the mix, and it is actually a rather vibrant, complex artwork.

With its flowing river and dense composition of large trees in the foreground, it reminds me of one of Kôrin’s most famous works, a pair of folding screens depicting Red and White Plum Blossoms, which has been designated a National Treasure. The black stream with hints of gold in this work seems almost guaranteed to be drawing upon, or to be inspired by, that earlier Kôrin work. Tarashikomi, the watery color-bleeding effect characteristic of Rinpa, is used in a controlled way here, to give texture and character to rocks and tree trunks, while flecks of gold – not full squares of gold foil, but just scattered flecks – suffuse the scene.

Suzuki Kiitsu’s “Morning Glories” (asagao) is perhaps one of the most famous screen paintings in the Metropolitan’s collection of Japanese art. Frankly, I think it pales in comparison to the Yatsuhashi (Eight-Plank Bridge) and Irises screen by Kôrin (which will be on display come September), in terms of its fame, but nevertheless, the museum takes great pride in this piece, and I don’t blame them. In some ways, this piece strikes me as the perfect example of the decorative Rinpa aesthetic. It alludes to deeper meanings through the simple presence of the flowers, which imply resonances to various classical poems and stories that feature morning glories, but it is also very strongly (purely) decorative. The flowers do not grow straight up, limited by any effort to produce a realistic sense of space, or a setting in which the content of the painting takes place; rather, they twist across the gold-backed planes of the screens to produce a pattern that is decorative and aesthetically beautiful in its composition. The juxtaposition of deep blues and greens against a bright gold background, and the pattern in which they are arranged, reminds one of the aforementioned Kôrin Yatsuhashi/Iris screens, and of Kôrin’s Irises screen held by the Nezu Museum in Tokyo, both of which are among the most commonly seen examples, in for example art history survey textbooks, of the decorative attitude or style of the Rinpa aesthetic.

A smaller, darker screen of the same motif (morning glories) elsewhere in the exhibit, painted by Tawaraya Sôri, provides an interesting contrast. Sôri’s screen is short and wide, looking like something that would be put on a desk, or displayed in an alcove, rather than serving as a room divider or decorative backdrop as Kiitsu’s full-size screens might have. Sôri’s composition is also more restrained, leaving a lot more open space, and making the flowers seem more like accents, almost, rather than the main subject of the composition.

The exhibit also included a number of woodblock printed books reproducing designs by Ogata Kôrin, Sôtatsu, and others. The books are rather limited in their ability to reproduce subtleties of shading, and include limited color (in order to keep costs down); thus they are certainly not the most attractive art objects, as compared to proper paintings. Yet, they do have their appeal. And, perhaps more importantly, they have great historical significance. Though the gallery labels fail to discuss this at all, these books would have served as guides or inspiration for artists trying to understand how to paint in the Rinpa style (or how to paint, period), and would also have served to provide commoner consumers with the opportunity to see and appreciate Rinpa paintings. Of course, the books cannot be taken as an accurate reproduction of the paintings, not by a long-shot, but for the average guy on the street in 19th century Japan, I suppose it’s better than nothing. Including these books here is, in terms of exhibit design and concept, I think, a real plus point. It takes the exhibit beyond being a discussion rooted purely in artistic style and technique, and beyond simply providing the museum visitor with something pretty to look at, and takes it into the realm of discussing actual historical context and impact. How did people know about, or experience, Rinpa art? For most people, it was through books like these, since the actual paintings were very expensive, and were of course quite limited in quantity. This aspect of the role of the books as painting guides is especially important for Rinpa, since few Rinpa artists studied directly under other Rinpa artists; I don’t know the historical details of whether this holds true for any particular artist, but it is easy to imagine someone being either self-taught, or studying under a Kanô, Tosa, or ukiyo-e painting master, and then looking at these books for inspiration, to start deviating from their master’s themes and motifs, and to start producing Rinpa works.

Finally, a set of a different kind of woodblock printed books are displayed in the print room towards the end of the exhibition. Kamisaka Sekka’s three-volume set entitled Momoyogusa (百々世草), or “Flowers of a Hundred Worlds”, is so dense with color and design that I thought each page was hand-painted; that these were unique, handpainted books. In fact, they are mass-produced woodblock printed books, albeit very expensive, high-end ones, with deep colors and extensive use of silver and gold. The first time I heard the name Kamisaka Sekka, it was attached to a hand-drum he designed (he designed the lacquer box and cloth cover for the drum as well), and so I have always associated him with lacquerwares and the like. However, as it turns out, he was a truly incredible painter. At least one of his paintings, a colorful, charming depiction of the 36 Poetry Immortals (Sanjûrokkasen), will be on display after the September rotation.

It is difficult to display books in an exhibition. The books are, by necessity, under glass, and even if they weren’t, we cannot have visitors touching the books, turning the pages. In this Rinpa exhibit, the Met has rectified this problem by first of all displaying multiple copies of the books, each open to a different page; but, also, by providing touchscreens that allow a visitor to virtually page through every page of all three volumes. Another set of touchscreens in the George Nakashima-furnished room overlooking the Temple of Dendur display pages from another album of Rinpa paintings.

I had the great fortune of a sneak-peek at some of the works that will be going up in rotation in September. I am not sure which pieces are coming down, so if one has the chance, it would probably be best to visit the exhibition at least twice – both over the summer, and after the September change-up. It looks like they’ve reserved some of the most stunning pieces – including the Kamisaka Sekka “36 Poetry Immortals” painting, and one by Sakai Ôho of a maple in autumn – for September. I wish I were going to be able to be here to see them installed in the gallery. However, in the meantime, all of the pieces in the show (for both rotations) can be seen online at the exhibition’s webpage.

Designing Nature: The Rinpa Aesthetic in Japanese Art is up at the Metropolitan Museum, 1000 Fifth Ave, New York NY, from now until January 13, 2013, with a rotation in mid-to-late September. A catalog for the exhibit will become available in late September as well.

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