“The Deep Green of Summer Mountains”

In a Chinese-style landscape, the Literati painter Hine Taizan has meticulously depicted various goings-on of scholars and recluses amid a setting the artist has evocatively entitled “The Deep Green of Summer Mountains,” using the character sui 翠, which connotes the blue-green of kingfisher feathers. In the foreground two scholars have brought books and a qin (zither) to tête-à-tête outdoors upon a rocky outcrop along a mountain stream. Further upstream, amid a sprawling covered walkway along the water’s edge a solitary figure seems to be awaiting friends to appear. Partly hidden in the mountain recesses is a temple complex—symbol of leaving behind the secular world—while in the background are faraway peaks, representing a metaphysical immersion into a spiritual or philosophical realm.

Taizan was born in Hine village in Izumi province (present-day Izumi-sano City in Osaka), and arrived in Kyoto in 1837 at age 24, and remained active in the capital until his death at age 57 in 1869. Early on he studied with the Kano school painter Tōda Eiun 桃田英雲 in Osaka. Some sources say that Nukina Kaioku became his teacher of calligraphy and painting for a while. He also became acquainted with the merchant and scholar of classical Japanese literature Satoi Fukyu 里井浮丘 who lived in his hometown of Izumi. Fukyu had a large collection of paintings and calligraphy, and also through Fukyu was introduced to the important Nanga painter Okada Hankō, with whom he studi