The season is turning from late summer to early autumn. Under a trellis of ripened gourds, a farmer\u2019s family are enjoying the evening cool. They appear to be looking at the moon dimly afloat in the sky.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This is neither a gilt folding screen nor a\npainting of a person of distinction. It is a designated national treasure, but hardly\nlooks so. At the time when this painting came to be, making the anonymous common\npeople the protagonists of a painting was quite unusual.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Although the painting looks as though it\nwas rendered casually, the composition is well thought out as seen in the bold fashion\nit leaves empty space and the exquisite position of the moon. This work reached\na high degree of perfection. The man is depicted with thick, rugged lines,\nwhile the woman is outlined with fine, gentle lines. The touch of vermillion on\nher lips gives accent to the basic tone of ink.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Dubbed the \u201cmystery painter,\u201d little is\nknown about where and when Morikage was born or died. The signature on his work\nsimply said, \u201cby Morikage,\u201d and the production dates of most of his work remain\nunknown.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Morikage studied painting under the tutelage\nof Kano Tanyu, who had helped revitalize the Kano school. He later came to be\nconsidered the first of the \u201cbig four\u201d under Tanyu and married his master\u2019s niece,\nwhich tells how much Tanyu expected of him. However, due to scandals involving his\ndaughter and son, he left the Kano school of his own accord. He is said to have\nmoved to Kanazawa at an invitation of the Maeda clan of the Kaga domain.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Morikage is said to have worked vigorously on his Agriculture in the Four Seasons<\/em> \u2013 a pair of folding screens \u2013 during his sojourn in Kanazawa. The motif is said to have originated in China and experts say rulers would have such paintings rendered to admonish themselves. In Japan, a number of painters worked on the same theme after the end of the 15th century.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Viewing Morikage\u2019s Agriculture,<\/em> you might be tempted to add balloons to a number of people depicted there. A man and a child are caught in a rain shower and are laughing as they try to get under a broken umbrella; a group of people taking shelter from the rain are jam-packed in a shed. It\u2019s as if you can actually hear the laughter or someone murmuring, \u201cI\u2019m done for.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n The subject of the painting does not\nnecessarily require depicting the lively expressions of the common people, and\nyet, Morikage did so. You can tell the artist is being playful and casting a gentle\neye on things that are familiar to him.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Whether or not \u201cCooling off\u201d was produced in Kanazawa is uncertain. However, a scene where people are cooling off is also depicted in Agriculture.<\/em> If we suppose the former is a close-up rendering of the same scene, it fits nicely with the idea that it was produced in Kanazawa. The high degree of perfection and his personal history suggest the same.<\/p>\n\n\n\n For Morikage, whose family was broken up, the casual scenery of a happy home may have been a reminder of his family when he was happy, or his ideal image of a family. Either way, I think he really put his heart into this artwork.<\/p>\n\n\n\n (From The Yomiuri Shimbun)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Remarks by Fumi Ikeda \/ Senior curator, Suntory Museum of Art The season is turning from late summer to early […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":483,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[407],"tags":[37,39,71],"class_list":["post-459","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-feature","tag-folding_screens","tag-kusumi_morikage","tag-national_treasure"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n