Waterfall and Pines

Wildly flowing water, rushing mountain streams, and tumbling waterfalls fascinated Ōkyo and he depicted them on paintings, screens, and sliding doors throughout his life. His interest seems to have begun early in his career while he was under the patronage of the Enman’in Temple in Ōtsu which gave him the opportunity to work on mastering his technique of painting realistically from life. Ōkyo’s friend Yūjō, the aristocratic head of the temple, was reputed to regret that his garden lacked a waterfall, and so asked Ōkyo to paint one for him. The result was a gigantic painting, over ten feet tall, whose waterfall seemed to spill out of the picture into the nearby garden pond.

As the signature attests, Ōkyo completed this painting in 1772, and it is one of a number of ink studies of waterfalls by the artist. All the compositions of this period show a mountain stream flowing into a huge waterfall, tumbling between sharply angled rocks and flowing on again in rippling waves. The carefully completed composition of this two-panel screen which, having originally been as four sliding-door panels, concludes with an expansive area of open space.