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Mephisto2 · 12-06-2004, 06:39 PM

Hasegawa Tohaku
Dragon
Screen
Japanese Momoyama period, dated 1606
Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, USA (not currently on view)

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Hasegawa Tohaku (1539-1610) was one of Japan's greatest painters. Tohaku's artistic work was tremendously manifold, not only in styles but also in subject matter. For more than four decades he created delicate polychrome paintings of birds and flowers, compositions in ink, detailed representations of textile patterns, rock formations in nimble brush strokes, large-scale landscapes, and sharp cut sensitive portraits. Despite this huge variety, there were only two main factors that significantly influenced the artist's work. These were his two main patrons, members of the intellectual elite in the monasteries in and around Kyoto and the connoisseurs from the port town of Sakai, and his rivalry with the contemporary Kano School.

One of his patrons, Abbot Nittsu Shonin, who also became a lifelong friend, shared Tohaku's passion for art. The pair regularly exchanged views and considerations on the subject, a summary of which was written down by Nittsu Shonin in 1592. The Tohaku Gasetsu (Tohaku on Art), which applies the theoretic principals of Chinese painting to Japan, has been an enormously important text for Japanese art criticism. It was republished in 1932 in the first issue of Bijutsu Kenkyu.

Besides intellectual stimulation, Tohaku owed to his abbot friend his acquaintance with the legendary tea master Sen Rikyu, a descendant of a merchant family of Sakai. Both encouraged the artist and also arranged important commissions for him. Rikyu's aesthetics, which emphasised the natural perfection of the simple and beauty of the unaffected, unfinished and modest, also had an impact. These ideals were found in both Chinese ink painting of the Song and Yuan dynasties (13th-14th century) and the work of some Japanese monk-painters of the 15th century, who were inspired by non-academic painting. Thanks to his two patrons, Tohaku had ample occasion to study such paintings in Sakai's private collections. The outstanding compositions in ink of Tohaku's mature work are the results of this intense analysis, the essence of which is to be found in his painting depicting a pine grove.

The contrast of Tohaku's subtle compositions in ink to the colourful paintings on gold of the Kano School, favoured by the elite of the country, is obvious. Kano Eitoku (1543-1590) was extraordinarily successful in Tohaku's day and Tohaku is said to have become his pupil when he first came to Kyoto (about 1570) to study painting. Eitoku had a well co-ordinated team of painters and often received the major commissions of the time. The military leaders Oda Nobunaga and Toyotomi Hideyoshi were among his patrons and for more than half a century, their castles' interiors were furnished with screens and sliding doors with colourful scenes on gold-leaf ground created by their favoured artist. Both Nobunaga and Hideyoshi set trends which were followed by many of the leading classes.

Tohaku eventually succeeded, however, in undermining the supremacy of the Kano School and developing his own, individual artistic style. He also began to receive important commissions, though this happened relatively late in his career. It was not until 1590, for example, when he ran a studio with his son Kyuzo and several employees, that he was able to cope with commissions such as the paintings for the Shoun Temple in Tokyo.

In contrast to the richly coloured paintings of the Kano School, most of Tohaku's later works are simple compositions in ink created for Zen monasteries in Kyoto. Some of his sliding doors are still in use today.

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One of a pair of six-panel folding screens with "When the dragon rises, clouds appear," and "When the tiger roars, wind blasts." These verses are insribed in the scrolls by Muqi- a celebrated Chinese monk-painter (active about mid. 13th century). With those Muqi scroll paintings as a model, Tohaku captures the powerful expressions of the two mystic animals and the energy surrounding them. However, the dynamic use of space and the compostion show Tohaku's own contribution to the genre.

Mr Mephisto