Mountain landscape

中林竹洞筆 山水図 一幅 絹本墨画淡彩

A scholar sits alone on a pavilion, gazing at a waterfall amidst a mountainous Chinese landscape. The artist Chikuto worked in Kyoto a generation or more later than the artists featured in the long screen case to your right. Nevertheless, he was devoted to the same Chinese-derived literati ideal of the scholar amateur, who remains pure and above worldly concerns.

Further information:
Here the typical Chinese-style literati landscape is rendered as a steeply ascending hillside, an open viewing pavilion perched on stilts in the river at its base. A scholar sits alone, absorbed in the scenery, in particular a waterfall that streams down the opposite rock face. Farther up the hill, the water passes a few more buildings, almost hidden within a line of trees. Diminished in size, these elements suggest distance in a rather abstract way, unsupported by other indications of volume or depth. The cascade is also treated schematically, as a series of thin, even rivulets and smooth ribbons of reserve white—the silk ground—punctuated only by a few oblong boulders. The composition is unified through the repetition of squared off, rounded and Y-shaped rocks, and by a few narrow, grassy slopes, highlighted with yellowish-green pigment. The cool, rational atmosphere, enhanced by Chikuto's controlled brushwork and pale washes, creates a dreamlike mood for this scene of ideal scholar life. The son of a Nagoya physician, Chikuto began to study painting at a young age. While still in his teens he became the protégé of a wealthy local merchant and collector; the connection enabled him to study Chinese paintings at first hand. In 1815, he moved to Kyoto and joined the circle of artists associated with the scholar and painter Rai San'yo (1780–1832). There Chikuto developed a quiet, lyrical style informed by his knowledge of works by Chinese masters in the orthodox 'Northern School' lineage.