Sketch for the Portrait of Tachihara Suiken

Watanabe Kazan Japanese

Not on view

Tachihara Suiken was the father of a close friend of Kazan's. The completed work is now lost, but several surviving sketches reveal that the artist rejected the concealment of physical defects in favor of a sympathetic realism. In this sketch, the only embellishments that refer to the subject's social status are his sword and the book tucked into his robe. His shriveled mouth and unshaven chin, adroitly captured by the Western technique of chiaroscuro—which Kazan had studied—enhance the impression of intense self-determination made by this eighty-one-year-old samurai.

Sketch for the Portrait of Tachihara Suiken, Watanabe Kazan (Japanese, died 1841), Hanging scroll; ink and color on paper, Japan

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painting

Sketch for the Portrait of Tachihara Suiken, Watanabe Kazan (Japanese, died 1841), Hanging scroll; ink and color on paper, Japan
Sketch for the Portrait of Tachihara Suiken, Watanabe Kazan (Japanese, died 1841), Hanging scroll; ink and color on paper, Japan

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