Tomita Keisen?
Tagasode and Chin, 1920s
Signed: Keizan-jin
Two-panel screen; colored lacquer on paper
61 1/8 x 60 1/8 inches (155.3 x 152.7 cm)
Keisen was born in Fukuoka in 1879, the fifth son of a wealthy noodle-making family. He began his study of painting around the early age of twelve with a Kanō school painter who was formerly in the service of the local lord. Subsequently he studied literati painting, yamatoe, and Shijō painting with Tsuji Kakō, a Kyoto painter who had studied with Kōno Bairei and later went on to become principal of the Kyoto School of Fine Arts and Crafts. After leaving Kakō’s studio he studied Zen, Rimpa, and Buddhist painting and also haiga (paintings to accompany haiku poems). He was known as a flamboyant individualist.
Keisen combined traditional Japanese styles with unconventional themes, often amusing. Tagasode and Chin seems perfectly suited to his temperament and experimental nature. It combines elements of the Kanō and Rimpa schools in the painting of the kimono thrown over the lacquered stand while the chin with its fluffy tail seems to carry the softer influence of naturalistic Shijō studies.
The chin is of ancient Chinese or Tibetan origin. It was imported to Japan hundreds of years ago and became a favorite of the Japanese imperial family. In 1853 Commodore Perry presented a pair to Queen Victoria after his return from Japan. It is probable that Perry received them as a gift from the shogun.
Keisen was drawn to the practice of Zen, to poetry and poets (as well as to wild nightlife and drinking associated with artists), and he was also deeply appreciative of Western paintings. Perhaps due to his love of haiga, in 1923 he painted Twelve Views of the Imperial Palace to accompany a book of poems by the French Ambassador to Japan, Paul Claudel.
As it bears no seal (although the signature seems credible) perhaps Keisen painted this amusing screen to give as a gift to one of his foreign or Japanese friends or possibly he worked with a Kyoto lacquer craftsman with a full scale draft to carry out the theme of this painting, as it is unusual to find such an art work painted in lacquer.
Keisen’s paintings are represented in the collections of the Kyoto Municipal Museum of Art, the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, the National Museum of Modern Art, Kyoto, the National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo, and the Yamatane Museum of Art, among others.
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