Bamboo in Summer

Takahashi Sōhei began studying painting with Tanomura Chikuden (1777–1835), a leading literati painter and fellow native of Bungo Province (modern-day Oita Prefecture) on the far western island of Kyūshū. Sōhei first encountered Chikuden in 1822 when the master visited Sōhei's hometown of Kitsuki from Kyoto. Soon thereafter, Sōhei took Chikuden as a teacher and returned with him to Kyoto, where he was quickly recognized as one of Chikuden's most promising students. Active thereafter primarily in Osaka, Sōhei was so highly regarded by Chikuden that in the master's Record of Painting Teachers and Friends of Chikuden-sō (Chikudensō shiyū garoku), he is the only of Chikuden's disciples listed alongside many senior, leading artists of the day. However, by his mid-twenties, Sōhei had contracted an illness that forced him to spend most of his time back home in Bungo. Although his age at death, thirty-two, is known, there is some confusion about the exact year. He is thought to have stayed in Bungo permanently after 1830, and rumors that he had died began circulating in 1833, but he is believed to have survived a couple more years, until around 1835.

In this early work, completed only five years after his initial encounter with Chikuden, Sōhei depicted the vitality of young, growing bamboo, one of his favorite subjects. Sōhei’s painting technique contains within it a subtle contrast: each leaf and the trunk of the plant are meticulously outlined with smooth, thin brushstrokes in contrast to the delicate ink wash that defines the rock and the groundline.