Rooster in a Storm
Sō Shizan Japanese
Not on view
This scroll portrays a rooster in a rainstorm. The artist applied ink with great sensitivity to depict the blown bamboo leaves and strong gusts of wind, and brilliant colors to render the blue morning glories and the magnificent rooster. Flowers and bird alike are completely soaked and disordered. Hunkering down against the storm, the rooster demonstrates an unbreakable determination to endure. At the upper right edge of the painting is the artist’s signature, his age of sixty-one, and his seal, which reads “Shizan.” In the Edo period Shizan was the leading painter of the Nagasaki school, whose style, characterized by realistic, brightly colored images of birds and flowers, was inspired by the Chinese painter Shen Nanpin, who taught painting in Nagasaki from 1731 to 1733.
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