Inohara Taika 1897-1980
Elegant Accessories, late 1920s
Seal: Taika
Framed panel: ink and color on paper34 ½ x 51 inches (86.3 x 127.5 cm)
Inohara Taika specialized in bird-and-flower painting. Born in Hiroshima to a farmer’s family, he moved to Osaka to study painting under Kanashima Keika, a fellow Hiroshima native. At Keika’s advice, Taika entered the Kyoto Municipal Special School of Painting in 1918. While still a student, his Niwatori (Rooster) and Shichimenchō (Turkey) were accepted to the Teiten in 1921 and 1922. An admirer of Tsuchida Bakusen, a leading member of the progressive Kokuga Sōsaku Kyōkai (Association for the Creation of National Painting), Taika became Bakusen’s pupil and participated in the group’s Kokuten exhibition in 1926 and 1927 while also showing his work at the 1927 Teiten. After Bakusen’s death, Taika entered the juku (private school) of Nishimura Goun, a superb painter of birds and flowers. Upon Goun’s premature death in 1938, Taika joined other painters to maintain Goun’s juku. Throughout his career, Taika continued to train younger artists, first as a teacher at the Kyoto Municipal School of Arts and Crafts in early Shōwa and at various Kyoto art institutions after the war. A consistent participant in the post-war Nitten government exhibitions, Taika’s mature style was characterized by a thoughtful, quiet expression achieved with subtle color. In 1974, he was honored with the Imperial Award of the Japan Art Academy for his long-time contribution to nihonga.
Elegant Accessories represents a magnificent white Russian wolf-hound (Borzoi) reclining on the floor with quiet dignity. Its elaborate collar connects to the metal leash visible on the left. Near its front right leg lies a beautiful chipped Imari bowl that with his jeweled collar denotes his elevated status within the household. First introduced to Japan with the initial European contact in the sixteenth century, Western canines became popular in Taishō Japan as a coveted status symbol and emblem of modernity. Therefore, paintings of this subject were not rare in early Shōwa nihonga. In the early twentieth century, the wolf-hound became the favorite ultimate glamour dog for Hollywood movie stars. However, Taika’s Elegant Accessories stands out also for its psychological dimension, suggesting that it is not a straightforward celebration of the novel beauty associated with exotic animals. The pensive look expressed in the jewel-like dog’s eye, the presence of a chain leash that curtails his freedom, and the gorgeous, but damaged, bowl all contribute to creating a sense of ambiguity. Taika’s extraordinary realism—reflected in his grasp of the dog’s complex facial structure, line-by-line rendering of its curling fur, and elaborate depiction of the chipped bowl—further sharpens, rather than mitigates, the melancholic mood of the painting. With its uncompromising realism and subtle expression of pathos, Elegant Accessories relates to the style of Taika’s Kokuten works of the late 1920’s
Taika’s works are in the collection of Kyoto Municipal Museum of Art and The National Museum of Modern Art, Kyoto, among others.
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