Art Masters Who Inspire (1): Ito Jakuchū (伊藤若冲）

My first art master to write about is Ito Jakuchū(1716-1800). His work is a source of inspiration for many artists in Japan, including myself for his meticulously detailed and vivid-colored paintings.

Ito Jakuchū is well-known for his 30-scroll series of classical paintings called “Colorful Realm of Living Beings”(動植綵絵, doushoku-saie) created over a span of some 10 years (1757-1766). These scroll paintings on silk are one of Japan's most renowned cultural treasures, present a range of natural world subjects- chickens, butterflies, insects, flowers, birds and plants.

⏪ (In the" Roosters" (群鶏図, Gunkei-zu), Jakuchū painted different shades of lights and layers making the roosters in their surrounding taking on a life)

Notably, Jakuchū's popularity has soared in recent years in Japan, a powerful “Jakuchū boom”, with wide media coverage and a long waiting queue to more than 2 hours at exhibition halls. More than 14,000 visitors per day come to see his extraordinary works

A study of the pigmentation has found that he layered one color on top of another after each drying and added a sub-layer of color on the back of the silk to give it a spatial depth. He also experimented with mineral and vegetal pigments to achieve different grades of opacity and transparency. His innovative and experimental style was influenced by direct observation of nature and patterns and designs of Kyoto textiles while study Zen Buddhism and Chinese painting in 1755.

The “Colorful Realm” is now with the Museum of the Imperial Collection, Tokyo.  They were first donated to Shoukokuji, a major Zen monastery in Kyoto. Another of his famous 3-set hanging scrolls, “ Sayamuni Triptych" (釈迦三尊図 ) is exhibited at Shoukokuji. You may recognize this famous piece of art “Birds and Animals in the Flower Garden” (鳥獣花木図屏風, Choujuukaboku-zu byoubu) from the Price Collection in Los Angeles along with several other collections that had crossed Pacific Ocean.

 

 It depicts a white elephant and a number of other animals in a garden. But a closer look shows the precision work on each grid of 1 cm square shape he had created in the pair of six-folded screen.

 

Year 2016 celebrates the 300th anniversary of his birth. If you have a chance to be in either Tokyo or Kyoto, be sure to look out for an exhibition work of his paintings worth an awesome visit.