Egrets in a Lotus Pond
Yamamoto Baiitsu Japanese
Not on view
A flock of egrets has descended upon a pond where lotus plants are bursting into bloom. Yamamoto Baiitsu, one of the most prolific and highly esteemed Nanga (Literati) painters of the Owari domain (present-day Nagoya), was renowned for his bird-and-flower paintings and ink landscapes. This composition departs from his standard output by taking the two primary pictorial motifs—egrets and lotuses—and repeating them in profusion. The effective use of perspective adds a naturalistic flavor to the depiction not often found in the artist’s works. Baiitsu also mastered the “boneless” (mokkotsu) painting technique, in which outlines are discarded and pigments naturally pool to form the edges of forms, as seen in the rendering of the lotus leaves.
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