Views of Lake Biwa at Sakamoto

Lake Biwa, Japan’s largest and most famous inland body of water, lies just east of the mountains that form the eastern border of the ancient imperial capital of Kyoto. Since all the buildings in this depiction are thatched rather than interspersed with tiled-roof houses as would have been expected at that period, the artist clearly intended this extended view of Lake Biwa as an idealized, rustic version of the actual scenery of the beautiful lake.

The conspicuously assertive character of much of the artist’s earlier work seems to have entirely vanished here, and the piece has a more serene character than Kinkoku’s magnificent hanging scroll painting The Road to Shu, dated 1830. The signature on this pair of screens informs us that Kinkoku painted them in 1832, the year of his death, at his studio at the foot of Mt. Hiei.

Kinkoku was a Buddhist monk affiliated with the Pure Land (Jōdo) sect. He is known to have led an eccentric life, as is recorded in his biography, The Life of Monk Kinkoku (Kinkoku Shōnin ichidaiki).