Original
Posting: 18 October, 2000
Updated:
Prepared by: Steven Boutcher
Under the feudal regime solidly established by the shogunal government of the Tokugawa and sustained by the development of commerce and industry, Japan enjoyed an era of peace and prosperity which lasted two and a half centuries. Freed from the fear of both foreign invasion and public disturbances at home, the different classes of society--military, aristocratic and bourgeois--called on artists of various tendencies to satisfy their need for works of art. While Edo (present-day Tokyo) came to the fore as the political center of the country, Osaka asserted its economic importance and Kyoto, the seat of the imperial family, maintained its great cultural traditions. Local rulers everywhere, organized in a strict feudal hierarchy, encouraged the development of the arts and sciences in their respective provinces, and above all in the towns where they resided. The painting of this period--called the Edo or Tokugawa period--may accordingly be likened to a meadow in spring carpeted with flowers of all kinds. A survey of the most important of these various trends may best begin with the decorative painting of the Sotatsu-Korin school.
In the early seventeenth century the establishment of the new Tokugawa regime had not yet stifled the creative impetus of the heroic periods and Sotatsu, an artist of real genius, forged a highly original style characterized by a bold stylization aiming at decorative effects. His art represents one of the pinnacles of Japanese painting.
Little is known about this artist's career. However, the thorough investigations made by a number of Japanese specialists (notably Fukui Rikichiro, Tanaka Ichimatsu, Tani Nobukazu and Yamane Yuzo) have thrown new light on the figure of Sotatsu and his entourage, adding greatly to the available documentation and contributing valuable stylistic analyses of his works. There can be no doubt that he belonged to the merchant class, whose power and prosperity were then on the rise. Tani Nobukazu and several other scholars believe that he was born into a family of cloth merchants enriched by the manufacture of brocades and trade with China. Such a background already distinguishes him from other contemporary painters, the Kano in particular. While the latter carried on the tradition of painting in the Chinese manner, Sotatsu found his inspiration in the secular and popular painting of the Muromachi period which, deriving from the style of the court academy, later degenerated in the hands of artists specializing in decorative
screen paintings and humorous scrolls. Sotatsu's antecedents will be better understood if we go back a little and examine another aspect, not yet dealt with, of the painting of the Muromachi period.
As noted at the end of Chapter 5, the tradition of secular painting of Japanese inspiration, which arose in the Heian and Kamakura periods, was officially maintained by the studio of the imperial court where, from the early fifteenth century on, the Tosa family controlled the Painting Office (E-dokoro). (The genealogical tree of this dynasty of painters, which traces its origin back to the Heian period, was an invention of the seventeenth century. The name Tosa originated with Tosa Yukihiro in the early fifteenth century. His father Yukimitsu, who seems to have been the first member of the family to practise the painter's craft, bore the name Fujiwara, not Tosa.) Actually these artists confined themselves to conventional representations of early paintings, though several members of the family, such as Mitsunobu (who died in I522), were highly esteemed by aristocratic patrons. The social disorders of the sixteenth century made life increasingly difficult for the descendants of the Tosa. The last representative was Mitsuyoshi, who moved to Sakai, a commercial port near Osaka, where he obtained the patronage of rich merchants. He transmitted the traditional color technique to the Kano school of the Momoyama period. His grandson Mitsuoki (I6I7-I69I) received the honorary title of head of the imperial studio, and his heirs bore that title down to the nineteenth century, but their style did little more than feebly perpetuate the beauties of the past.
Apart from this official line of artists, however, the technique and esthetic of classical Japanese painting were diffused among the secular painters, unconnected with the court, who decorated screens, fans and scrolls. Freed from the cramping restraints of the traditional school, they gave themselves up to a stylization and simplification which often resulted from the rapidity of their work or from the economy of materials employed; hence the unexpected decorative effects they sometimes obtained. Two or three vestiges of screen paintings on the fashionable theme, very much in the Japanese taste, of the Beach with Pines (hama--matsu--zu ) illustrate this tendency, which grew more marked in the course of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries.
Two sets of Landscapes by Sunlight and Moonlight, each mounted as a pair of screens, are painted in a style of great charm and originality. The pair in the Kongo--ji temple in Kauchi province is less refined than the one in the National Museum in Tokyo, but much more lively. The setting is a fanciful range of mountains overlooking the sea. (illustration page 143) The righthand screen with the gilded disk of the sun represents a spring landscape; green, bell--shaped peaks are covered with flowering cherry trees and rows of pines. (illustration page 142) The other screen, with a crescent moon, represents a winter scene. A light coat of snow cleaves to the superimposed arabesques of mountains and foothills, and to the leafage of trees. To this stylized effect, which immediately catches the eye, is added the curious treatment of pines and waves. The picture elements, subjected to an almost helter-skelter rhythm, seem to be caught up in a wild dance. Thanks to a combination of different techniques (including that of the Kano school applied to the treatment of trees), this artist, or artisan, has produced a work that is both decorative and expressive.
It would not be difficult to see in these decorative screens of the artisan--painters of the sixteenth century one of the sources of Sotatsu's art. Great, however, is the distance separating the disparate, naively handled elements of these compositions from the flawless unity that gives their artistic tension to Sotatsu's masterpieces. How did the latter achieve so original a style, and how did he contrive to transform, as if by magic, the rather rough workmanship of these popular artisans into a plastic creation of such purity? These are the secrets that puzzle us when we study his art.
One of the few facts we know for certain of Sotatsu's life is that in the autumn of I630, having already acquired the dignity of hokkyo (third in rank of the honorary titles of Buddhist monks, which could also be granted to lay artists), he copied four illuminated scrolls of the Saigyo-hoshi-ekotoba (Life of the Poet-Monk Saigyo), then in the imperial collection. He executed this work to the order of a local ruler, Honda Tomimasa by name, as we learn from the inscription written at the end of the scrolls by Karasumaru Mitsuhiro (I579-I638), a scholar and courtier who must have been a close friend of the artist. Moreover a letter from a court nobleman has recently turned up which asserts that Sotatsu, in the same year (I630), undertook to paint three pairs of screens on a gold ground (one of them a composition of arbutus) commissioned by the emperor Go-mizunoo. It may be inferred from this that the painter had already reached his maturity (in other words, was over forty) and enjoyed a high reputation at the court. The copy of the Saigyo scrolls (now in the Morikawa Collection), and another version of it also by Sotatsu, are both far superior to the mediocre charms of the original, which had been painted by Kaida Sukeyasu in I500. Sotatsu's superiority lies in the suppleness of his linework and in the freshness and poetic beauty of his colors. But the grandeur of his art is even better brought out in the large decorative screen paintings, most of them stamped with a round seal accompanied by his signature: "Hokkyo Sotatsu." Among these five or six screens whose authenticity is most generally accepted, the pair in the Seikado Foundation, illustrating episodes from the Tale of Genji (on the right, from the Sekiya chapter; on the left, from the Miotsukushi chapter), is outstanding for its power and originality.
The righthand screen (Seklya) represents the unexpected meeting of Prince Genji with the beautiful Utsusemi at the gate of Osaka in the mountains east of Kyoto. (illustration pages 146--147) For this classical subject the artist must have taken inspiration from earlier scroll paintings. Recent studies, in fact, have detected in the composition several elements borrowed directly from ancient e--maki; for example, the form of the ox seems to derive from the Ko--an version of the Kitano-tenjin-engi. But Sotatsu's genius enabled him to re-embody them in a perfect plastic unity. Following the convention of illustrated scrolls, the luxurious cart of Prince Genji together with his retinue sets up the main line of movement running across the composition from right to left, toward the barrier gate and the hut. But the predominant axis consists of a diagonal connecting the hero's cart with that of the beautiful Utsusemi in the upper left corner. The figure of a messenger, the lady's brother, coming toward the prince to present him with a poem, forms the connecting link. This diagonal axis symbolizing the psychological affinity is emphasized by the superb sweep of the green hill standing out against the gold ground.
The proportions of the dull--colored hut on the lower left and the correspondence of the bright colors placed at the extremities of the axis have all been skillfully calculated and balanced so as to produce a purely plastic effect. Traces of pentimenti visible around the three small figures on the upper left go to show the pains the artist took to work out a perfectly balanced arrangement of the picture elements. The mechanism of this composition thus resembles that of much contemporary art: it is the result of conscious planning and research.
The effect produced here by the juxtaposition of planes of unbroken color is already to be found in the scroll paintings of a much earlier period, those of the Tale of Genji for example. (illustration pages 72, 75) Five hundred years later Sotatsu revived this typically Japanese esthetic, using it in a highly personal manner and in terms of a highly modern vision. His constructive power appears even more clearly when we study the two screens side by side, and we regret that we were unable to reproduce the lefthand screen (Miotsukushi).
Contrasting with the static equilibrium of the Sekiya scene, a dynamic combination of forms and colors, carefully calculated throughout, enlivens the scene of Prince Genji's visit to the Shinto shrine of Sumiyoshi. Again a diagonal axis determines the unity of the composition, but it consists this time of complex curves, a line of pine trees and a beach of white sand. In the upper righthand corner a large ship adds depth both plastically and psychologically by suggesting the presence of Akashi--no--ue, a provincial lady wooed by Prince Genji during his exile, and watching now, from her discreet position offshore, for the return of her lover.
If the secret of Sotatsu's creations lies in a bold pictorial design, against a uniform background, of forms borrowed and indeed "pieced together" from classical paintings, that secret is even better revealed in a pair of screens representing classical dances (bu-gaku ), preserved in the Daigo-ji temple. Four groups of dancers dressed in fantastic costumes, copied from a scroll illustrating the dances (Kogaku-zu ) of the fifteenth century, are arranged quite simply against a gold background--but arranged with matchless compositional skill in colors of wonderful brilliance. The same diagonal axis this time traverses both screens, its course marked by the great decorative drums on the lower right and the clump of pines and plum trees on the upper left. The unusual position of the signatures (one on the upper right, the other on the lower left) suggests that the artist attached particular importance to the diagonal axis of the picture. Devoid of anecdotal elements, the composition produces a purely plastic, almost abstract effect.
Expression becomes freer and more dynamic in the pair of screen paintings representing the Wind God and the Thunder God, in the Kennin-ji at Kyoto. By assimilating the classical iconography of these divinities and taking inspiration from the polychrome statues erected in the early thirteenth century in the sanctuary of the Renge--o--in, and more particularly from the lightning god in the illuminated scroll of Kitano-tenjin-engi, Sotatsu succeeds in reconciling energy of movement with a decorative effect. This composition, often copied by his successors, marks one of the culminating points of his art. But the two elements, decorative and dynamic, are combined in a more complex stylization in the Pine Islands (Matsushima ) in the Freer Gallery, Washington. (illustration pages 150--151) Originally in the Shoun-ji tempIe at Sakai, this pair of screens was brought to the United States in I906 by the great collector Charles Freer, and it is considered one of the finest works of Japanese art in a foreign collection. The restless tossing of the waves sets up a train of movement that dominates the whole picture space. Drawn in gold and silver lines heightened with dabs of white, the stylized waves, in their variety and beauty, accentuate the sense of rhythm and life. (illustration page 151) On the righthand screen, two rocky islets crowned with pines stand firm against the ceaseless onset of the sea; here vigorous tones of green, blue and brown block out the composition, while on the lefthand screen a sand bank is depicted as nIustration page T50 decorative form in gold outlined with a broad rim of silver. (illustration page 150) (It is interesting to observe that this same treatment of a sand bank occurs in the classical period, notably in the avishly decorated sutras presented by the Taira family in 1160 to the Shinto shrine of Itsukushima.) In the background, a beach of golden sand, almost abstract in design, tretches away beneath pines with curving trunks. A single white--cap, whose crest conceals the tip of a branch overhanging the water, serves to suggest depth. Are we to ake this as a straightforward view of Matsushima, a site in northern Japan famous for its pine-clad islands? Or is there some classical allusion here? It has been suggested by Professor Fukui Rikichiro that the artist may have taken inspiration from an episode of the Ise--monogatari describing the tossing of the waves in the bay of Ise.
These four pairs of screen paintings mark the zenith of Sotatsu's art and suffice to rank him among the foremost masters of Japanese painting. But the early part of his life and above all the circumstances of his training remain obscure. While his family name is still unknown, we do know that he bore a commercial name (yago, the name of his shop): Tawara-ya. And this name, Tawara-ya, is mentioned in a document of the period as that of a famous firm dealing in painted fans. Yamane Yuzo has concluded from this that Sotatsu, born into a well--to--do family of brocade merchants, probably became the head of a studio specializing in the painting of fans and other decorative works, catering for the different classes of society. A business of this kind was designated at that time by the special name of e-ya (painting shop). Following his own tastes, which reflect both his classical culture and the medieval tradition of craftsmanship, he apparently designed the models himself and they were copied by his assistants, painters or artisans. This assumption is borne out by the fact that there still exist a great many paintings on fan paper (senmen-ga ) mounted on screens (for example, eleven fans on a pair of screens in the Daigo-ji temple and forty-eight on screens in the Imperial Collection), in addition to a number on square sheets (shiki-shi ). Among these almost countless minor works the "Sotatsu style" (including a fan bearing the date I607), often repeating the same subjects and the same designs, we can distinguish hands of different quality: that of the master and those of his disciples. In any case, the decorative style of the business house Tawara-ya seems to correspond to the taste of the period, and it was presumably in is field of art that Sotatsu, as head of the firm, first made his name as a painter and designer of striking originality.
An important work marks the turning point in the artist's career: the series of large--scale compositions decorating the interior of the Yogen--in temple at Kyoto, built in I62I to the order of the wife of Hidetada, the second Tokugawa Shogun. Pines and rocks on twelve doors with a gold ground and imaginary animals on the wooden doors all show the characteristic stylization of Sotatsu's art, admittedly less refined here than in the screens mentioned above, but still full of vigor. An undertaking on so large a scale seems to indicate that Sotatsu, though belonging by birth to a social class very different from that of his fellow artists, had now achieved a status sufficiently high for him to compete with the masters of the Momoyama period on their own ground--the decoration of screens and sliding doors. It has even been surmised (by Yamane Yuzo) that Sotatsu may have owed his honorary title of hokkyo to the success of his Yogen-in decorations.
His work as a fan painter enabled the artist to make himself a master of decorative design based on combinations of classical themes. But another factor was also determinant in shaping his style: the influence of Hon-ami Koetsu (I558--I637). This man, a great art patron and himself a calligrapher and decorator, played an important part in the cultural life of early seventeenth--century Japan. Member of a family of sword experts from father to son, he was able to gain the confidence of different classes of society. In I6I5, with the help of Tokugawa Ieyasu, he founded an art colony on his estate of Takagamine, located in the lovely countryside northwest of Kyoto. There he gathered round him the best artists and craftsmen of the day: potters, lacquerers, paper-makers, brushmakers, etc. According to one of the genealogical trees of the Hon--ami family, Sotatsu married a cousin of Koetsu; and it has even been maintained that Sotatsu's wife was the sister of Koetsu's wife. While there is some uncertainty about these relationships, the fact remains that the two men worked in close colIaboration. This is proved by numerous scrolls and albums (the earliest of them goes back to I606) in which Koetsu's superb calligraphy is inscribed on sheets richly decorated with designs in gold and silver (often prints) which exactly correspond with Sotatsu's style. The best of these collective works--the scrolls of Flowers of the Four Seasons, Lotus Flowers, and Deer --achieve a harmonious synthesis of design, calligraphy and poetry which recalls certain works of the Heian period.
We reproduce a fragment of the Deer Scroll, which figured in a recent exhibition of Japanese art in Europe and delighted visitors whose eyes have been "attuned" to modern art. (illustration page 152) Animal forms are rendered in simplified lines of gold and silver. Moreover, the movement and accent of the brushstrokes answer beautifully to Koetsu's calligraphic style, slightIy mannered as it is and tending always to the most decorative effect. The extent of his influence on Sotatsu's esthetic has not yet been determined, but we can admit the importance, in the formation of his styIe, of the art colony directed by Koetsu, whose work reflected the new esthetic of the wealthy middle class. In his drawings in gold and silver, Sotatsu made a point of combining free and easy linework with vigorous accents. Thanks to a special technique (tarashikomi ), he also succeeded in subtly varying the shading of uniform surfaces. These characteristic features recur even in his ink monochrome paintings; in this he departed from the Chinese tradition and invested the wash medium with a new decorative element. A good example is the Water Fowl on a Lotus Pond, a hanging scroll in the Magoshi Collection.
While Sotatsu scaled the heights of artistic creation, his disciples continued--even after his death apparently--to produce fans, decorated sheets for calligraphy, decorative screens and monochrome paintings, all based on the master's models. These works often bear the seal "Inen" (probably one of Sotatsu's pseudonyms) and even the signature "Sotatsu," which formed as it were the "trade marks" of his studio, but which naturally complicate the critic's work of appraisal and attribution. His outstanding disciple seems to have been Sosetsu, his brother or son, who succeeded him as head of the Tawara--ya studio before I639 and assumed the title of hokkyo before I642. He excelled in decorative and poetic compositions of flowers and plants, but they lack the structural power of Sotatsu's works.
The real successor who resuscitated Sotatsu's genius in the spirit of the eighteenth century was Ogata Korin (I658--I7I6). Whereas we know very little about Sotatsu, Korin's life and career can be followed step by step thanks to the archives, correspondence, seals and sketchbooks which the artist himself bequeathed to his descendants. Born into a wealthy family of cloth merchants, proprietors of the great business house of Karigane--ya at Kyoto, he passed a happy youth in the artistic atmosphere in which his family lived. His great grandfather had married the sister of Hon--ami Koetsu and his grandfather Sohaku (I57I-I63I) had lived in the art colony of Takagamine. His father Soken (I62I-I687), passionately fond of No plays, also excelled in the Koetsu style of calligraphy and himself practised painting of a rather conventional type. As cloth merchants, purveyors to the aristocracy and the imperial court, the family was obliged to keep abreast of the latest fashion in decorative designs. It would seem that Korin (or Ichinojo, to use his family name) was initiated into painting first by his father, then by Yamamoto Soken, a Kyoto painter of the Kano school. His early drawings and copies denote his interest in Sotatsu's art and vouch for his skill as a draftsman. On the death of his father Soken in I687, Korin inherited a large fortune which placed him on an independent footing in easy circumstances. Japan stood on the threshold of the Genroku era (I688--I704), the golden age of the Tokugawa government, a time of peace and plenty, particularly in the large cities. Accustomed from earliest youth to all the refinements of fashionable life, this child of the times eagerly took full advantage of his wealth to lead a life of pleasure and luxury, indulging his passion for painting and No plays. Before long, of course, he had squandered his fortune, and his ruin was hastened by the increasing difficulty of collecting the sums still owed to his father by the great noblemen, whose economic position began to be seriously jeopardized by the rise of the middle class. By the end of the seventeenth century Korin was virtually bankrupt. Selling his large house and the treasures of his family, he resolved to carve out a career for himself as a painter. His appointment to the rank of hokkyo in I70I, at the age of forty--four, marks the turning point in his life.
In a recent study of Korin, Yamane Yuzo holds that it was his collaboration with his brother Kenzan that prompted him to embark on a painter's career. As gifted as Korin, but of a milder, more settled temper, Kenzan dabbled in pottery at first as an amateur, learning the technique of the craft from Ninsei, the best potter in Kyoto. Then he decided to make a profession of it. In I699 he installed a kiln of his own in his villa at Narutaki, in the suburbs of Kyoto, and asked his brother Korin, whose talent he fully appreciated, to decorate his wares. The black designs on white pottery, which Korin accordingly executed, are spirited creations of great charm and already foreshadow his personal style. Presumably encouraged by these results, he henceforth devoted himself entirely to painting. The many sketches of this period, made directly from nature, chiefly of birds and flowers, reveal the guiding principles of his art, though the most surprising thing about them at first sight is their painstaking realism, so very different from the stylization of his finished paintings. According to the stylistic study of Yamane Yuzo, the brilliant Irises on a pair of screens in the Nezu Museum, Tokyo, belong to this initial stage of his career, before I704. Against a gold background, the artist has dispose an array of full--blown irises, a motif probably inspired by a famous anecdote in tl Ise-monogatari. The surface rhythm is set up by the distribution of green leafage an clusters of dark blue flowers; the bold stylization inaugurated by Sotatsu is here carried to its extreme limit. Made weightless, all objects become so many designs interwoven with arabesques of color. Who will deny that this sprightly composition and these ingenious color schemes reflect the elegance and luxury of the rich merchants of Kyoto with whom Korin remained on friendly terms? His loyal patron was Nakamura Kuranosuke, a proud man who rejoiced in the great fortune he had amassed by taking full advantage of his position in the Mint. Korin painted a portrait of him in I704 (now the Aoyagi Mizuho Collection) in which the artist was obviously at pains to introduce his stylized curves even into the portrayal of the human figure.
Late in the year I704 Korin left his native town for Edo (Tokyo), where he led an unsettled life until about I7IO. While soliciting the patronage of rich merchants like the Fuyuki family and great noblemen like the Sakai family, he steadfastly pursued his stylistic researches. In his paintings in both Indian ink and bright colors he perfected his mastery of brushwork, achieving a lighter, more graceful touch than that of Sotatsu (as, for example, in his small picture of azaleas). After his return to Kyoto for good about I7IO, his art steadily gained in depth and beauty until his death in I7I6. His genius for decoration is fully revealed in a pair of screen paintings representing a white and a red plum tree, preserved in the Atami Museum (Collection of the Sekai--kyusei--kyo). (illustration pages 154--155) Here, after a long communion with the art of Sotatsu, Korin gives the full and characterist measure of his own style. While this work may at first sight seem less brilliant and striking than the Iris screen, it is nevertheless more profoundly arresting in the matchless skill of its design and its flawless technical mastery. Curves and circles, the permanent motifs of his style, seem to be crystallized in the flowing stream whose surface is patterned with swirling ripples. (The technical secret of the brown lines which seem to be cut out of the bluish silver ground remains a mystery.) With their supple forms and freely flowing lines based on keen observation of nature, the plum trees stand in contrast with the decorative, almost abstract treatment of the stream. The different colors of the flowers and the opposing movements of the branches are carefully balanced against each other. Some art historians regard this composition, so rich in contrasts, as a reminiscence of Sotatsu's Wind God and Thunder God, of which Korin has left a very faithful copy.
Korin's art lacks the sweep and vigor of Sotatsu's, but his eighteenth--century grace and sprightliness amply atone for it. Both men were nourished on the classical traditions of the Heian culture, and both developed in the quiet, affluent, middle--class society Kyoto. But the century that intervened between them made for a considerable difference of style and expression, and the work of each bears the stamp of its period.
Among Korin's successors, his brother Ogata Kenzan (I663--I743)--also known by his pseudonyms Shinsei and Shisui--is notable as possessing highly individual qualities. He began as a potter and successfully created a style of his own in ceramics, which he decorated with black or colored designs. During the last decade of his life, which
spent at Edo, he also painted pictures in which his decorative talents are combined with a real sense of poetry; his fine calligraphy, often inscribed within the painting, creates an effect of satisfying harmony. A series of recently discovered leaves, with a calligraphically written poem inserted in a bird and flower composition appropriate to each month, has a refined lyricism reminiscent of the paintings of the twelve months (tsukinami-e ) and the poetic painting (uta-e ) of the Heian period.
While Kenzan, gifted with a keen and intimate sense of beauty, is perhaps in this respect even superior to his brother, his other successors did no more than imitate Korin's stylization and combine it with other traditional techniques. This was the case, for example, with Tatebayashi Kagei and Watanabe Shiko (I683--I755).
A century later Korin's art found a fervent admirer in Sakai Hoitsu (I76I--I828). Scion of a noble family of ample means, and thus under no obligation to earn a living, he spent his whole life in the enjoyment of artistic pursuits, writing haikai (poems of seventeen syllables) and practising calligraphy and painting. He tried his hand at nearly all the styles of the period before he finally realized Korin's superiority; he then took it upon himself to make it known to the public. To commemorate the centenary of the artist's death, which he celebrated himself in I8I5, he published " One Hundred Masterpieces of Korin" (Korin Hyakuzu ) and a "Collection of Seals of the Ogata School" (Ogataryu-inpu ). At the same time he sought to restore and stimulate the appreciation of Korin's art by means of his own brushes and accordingly executed a number of paintings, chiefly of flowers and birds. On the back of the screens of the Wind and Thunder Gods, painted by Korin after Sotatsu, which were then in his own collection (today in the keeping of the Commission for Protection of Cultural Properties, Tokyo), Hoitsu added two compositions of autumn plants, in the wind and after a storm--a theme closely akin to the main subject of the screens. Against a silver background agreeably contrasting with the gold ground on the other side, he expressed the poetry of nature with all the delicacy of spirit and touch characteristic of the late eighteenth--century dilettantes.
As we have already pointed out, the style or rather the esthetic of the Sotatsu-Korin school, unlike that of the other schools of Japanese painting, was not transmitted by a family tradition or by a filiation from master to disciple. This esthetic, forming part and parcel of the Japanese mentality, was nurtured and revived by an independent admirer after a certain lapse of time. For this reason the art of this school, and particularly that of Sotatsu, still awakens a response today and continues to extend its influence over even the most modern artists.
Chapter 1 / Chapter 2 / Chapter 3 / Chapter 4 / Chapter 5 / Chapter 6 / Chapter 7 / Chapter 8 / Chapter 9 / Chapter 10 / Bibliography