A Snowy Day

A woman, seen from behind and face hidden to the viewer, clasps the handle of an umbrella as she trudges through the snow across a small bridge on a wintry day. The subdued palette of blues, dark greys and black against pale grey and white sets the somber tone of the painting. The meticulous detailing of the padded cloak beneath the jet-black outer jacket, the hem of kimono, and the orange and black geta covers add a subtle decorative counterpoint to the otherwise muted composition. The painting is not a bijinga, “painting of a beautiful woman,” per se, but rather an attempt to capture the mood of frigid winter day.

The painting draws our attention even more when we realize it is by Takeuchi Meihō, son and longtime assistant of the celebrated Nihonga painter Takeuchi Seihō (1864–1941). Father and son were famous for their bird-and-flower paintings and uninhabited landscapes so it rare to see Meihō experimenting with a composition dominated by a human figure, even if he does not show the woman’s facial features.

Meihō not only received direct tutelage from his father, but he also trained formally in the painting section of the Kyoto Municipal School of Arts and Crafts (Kyōto Shiritsu Kaiga Senmon Gakkō), a school that gave advanced training to Nihonga painters. He was already winning prestigious painting awards in his mid-twenties from open-competition Bunten, the Ministry of Education art exhibitions. When in 1919 the Bunten was reconstituted under the new name Teiten (Imperial Academy of Fine Arts exhibition), he continued to receive recognition on a regular basis. In 1922 he won a prize in the Bunten Kansai exhibition for “Sudden Rain” (Niwakaame), his last entry in a juried public exhibition, and a reminder that he had created a reputation for himself as an artist who could capture the mood of the seasons.