Calligraphy (pair with 1986/1.167.1)

Description

Tomioka Tessai, whose career spanned nearly seven decades, is among the best known and loved artists of modern Japan. A native of Kyoto, he studied Confucian philosophy, Chinese literature, and Buddhist texts as a young man. This intense
immersion in Chinese texts deeply informs the subject matter and style of much of his work. He was also influenced by the tradition of literati (amateur scholar-artist) painting in Japan, which drew on Chinese culture and landscapes, and by Japanese-style painting. His subjects are often people and landscapes, usually based on a Chinese or Japanese historical event or literary passage. In this intimately scaled pair of hanging scrolls, he brings together calligraphy and painting. The calligraphy, a sevencharacter verse written in an archaic Chinese script, can be loosely translated as “A house without bamboo is not fit for living in.” Those without a garden need not worry, for the bamboo is in the companion scroll.
Spring/Summer Gallery Rotation 2015
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In China, certain plant motifs were especially favored by scholar/amateur artists because of their formal similarities to the kind of brushwork they had already mastered in calligraphy. Bamboo, orchids, and prunus blossoms all lend themselves to ink studies that oscillate between representations of nature and sheer ink play.
Tomioka Tessai, whose active career spanned nearly seven decades, is among the best known and most widely loved artists of modern Japan. A native of Kyoto, he studied Confucian philosophy, Chinese literature, and Buddhist texts as a young man. That intense immersion in Chinese texts deeply informs the subject matter and style of much of his work. In this intimately scaled pair of hanging scrolls, he brings calligraphy and painting together in a way that reminds us of their intertwined relationship in Chinese literary culture. The calligraphy, a seven-character verse written in an archaic Chinese script, can be loosely rendered as “A house without bamboo is not fit for living in.” Those without a garden need not worry, for the bamboo is right here, in the companion scroll.

Maribeth Graybill, for the exhibition "Japanese Visions of China,"
9/21/02 - 1/3/03