Kagayama Hakuho Screen Painting of Cat in Summer Garden

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Kagayama Hakuho Screen Painting of Cat in Summer Garden

About the Item

Byobu or folding screen in two panels, painted on silk in sumi ink, gofun or clam shell gesso and mineral pigments with a scene of a striped, black and white cat lying among flowering plants and grasses in a summer garden. Signed on the lower right by the artist: Hakuho, and sealed: Hakuho (Kagayama Hakuho, the go or art name of Kagayama Rinjiro, born 1880). With black lacquer frames. Late Taisho – early Showa era, circa 1920 – 1930. Kagayama Hakuho was born in Okayama Prefecture in 1880. He moved to Kyoto to study painting under Takeuchi Seiho, and later lived and worked in Kobe. He also used the art name of Hakugai. One of his paintings, titled Clear Autumn Sky, is in the collection of the University Art Museum, Kyoto City University of Art. Amid the lushly green foliage of a summer garden, a resting cat watches alertly. Hakuho frames the composition with a diagonal cascade of tall grass and flowering plants. Rendered with great realism, orange lilies, blushing morning glories, purple thistles, and small white wildflowers glow in the sunlight. Light washes the foreground and brightens the light green foliage from the left. The gold-washed earth recedes beneath the plants. In the upper right, dark-silver shadows the empty ground. This shade balances the dark greys and blacks striping the cat, which stares out to the open path below the painting’s margin. With very fine brushwork, Hakuho uses lavish amounts of malachite green with touches of lapis blue, detailing the brush-tailed grasses and wildflowers in moriage relief, thickening pigments on the broader grasses, and scattering mica to brighten the surface of the sun-dappled garden. Some of the weeds shiver in the wind, their drawn edges mismatched to the wavering pigment. This style of luxuriant naturalism was taken up by a number of talented artists in the later part of the Taisho era, but rarely with as much charm as here in Kagayama Hakuho’s summer garden. The small, daisy-like wildflowers are harujion (Erigeron Philadelphicus, commonly known as daisy fleabane and as frost root). First brought to Japan from North America in the Taisho era, harujion were exotic and fashionable additions to the gardens of the era.

Dimensions:
Height: 68 in (172.72 cm)Width: 69.5 in (176.53 cm)
Place of Origin:
Japan
Period:
Early 20th Century
Date of Manufacture:
Circa 1925
Condition:
Seller Location:
Orcas, WA
Reference Number:
1stDibs: LU9589741785