In medieval Japan, ink paintings that combined orchids with briars, bamboo, and rocks were most commonly associated with the Yuan-dynasty Chinese painter Xuechuang Puming (active mid-14th century), whom Tesshū Tokusai—a Zen monk and accomplished poet and painter— may have encountered during an extended trip to China in the 1330s. After his return to Japan, Tokusai introduced the genre to others Zen monks such as Gyokuen Bonpō (1325–1388), another celebrated painter of orchids. Tokusai’s poetic inscription reads:
Thousands of miles now from the River of Chu, My thoughts multiply— I wonder, could there be anything As redolent as the solitary orchid? —Trans. Aaron Rio
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鉄舟徳済筆 蘭竹石図
Title:Orchids, Bamboo, Briars, and Rocks
Artist:Tesshū Tokusai (Japanese, died 1366)
Period:Nanbokuchō period (1336–92)
Date:mid-14th century
Culture:Japan
Medium:Hanging scroll; ink on paper
Dimensions:Image: 28 3/8 × 14 1/2 in. (72 × 36.8 cm) Overall with mounting: 60 1/16 × 19 5/16 in. (152.5 × 49 cm) Overall with knobs: 60 1/16 × 21 in. (152.5 × 53.4 cm)
Classification:Paintings
Credit Line:Mary Griggs Burke Collection, Gift of the Mary and Jackson Burke Foundation, 2015
Accession Number:2015.300.61
From ancient times in China, wild orchid blossoms were associated with the virtues regarded as proper to the nobility—selfless modesty and moral purity. A similar symbolism was attached to bamboo, its graceful resilience linked with the virtuous rectitude of the scholar-gentleman. Paintings of orchids and bamboo were a specialty of Chinese literati artists of the fourteenth century, and many of the finest paintings of orchids are the work of Chan and Zen monks.
The master of the genre was the Chinese artist Puming (fl. 1340–50), renowned as the greatest orchid painter of the Yuan dynasty.[1] (Puming eventually lost favor in China; most of his extant works are preserved today in Japan.) The genre was introduced to Japan by monk-painters—including Tesshū Tokusai—who traveled to China in the fourteenth century. It remained popular with artists working in ink until it was superseded by landscape in the fifteenth century.
Although unconfirmed, Tesshū is believed to have studied painting with Puming when he was in China, and indeed a conceptual and stylistic affinity with Puming's work is evident here. The surface texture of the rocks, rendered in dry brushstrokes, for example, and the delineation of the bamboo leaves in short, dark strokes both recall the Chinese master's style. Tesshū 's paintings, however, are more gentle and cultivated in ambience.
Tesshū was born in the province of Shimotsuke, north of Tokyo. At an unknown date he moved to Kyoto, where he studied with the great Zen master Mukyoku Shigen (1282–1359) at Tenryūji. While in China, Tesshū received instruction from some of the most respected Chan monks of the period and was received by Emperor Shun-tsung (r. 1333–68), who bestowed upon him an honorary title. After returning to Japan about 1342, he continued his Zen studies with Musō Soseki (d. 1351) and became close friends with Gidō Shushin (1325–1388), the teacher of Gyokuen Bonpō (cat. no. 51); the Kūgeshū, a collection of poems by Gidō, includes a number of verses in praise of Tesshū 's orchid paintings.[2] Tesshū served at Manjuji and other famous temples in Kyoto. He retired in 1363 to Ryukōin, the subtemple that he founded at Tenryūji, in Saga, a suburb of Kyoto. He died there in 1366.
Tesshū is said to have painted orchids nearly every day, with a kind of religious fervor. This scroll is especially important to the study of his work, as it is one of the few paintings with poetry inscribed in his hand. It reads as follows:
Since leaving the rivers of Chu thousands of miles away, Unceasingly have I longed for them. Below the fragrant orchids I ask, What would a second national fragrance be like?[3]
Orchids were long associated with the Chinese poet-statesman Qu Yuan (343–277 B.C.), who was wrongly accused and exiled to the northern marshlands. Despondent, he drowned himself in the Miluo River. Undoubtedly, Tesshū was referring to Qu's Elegies of Chu when he wrote these lines.[4]
Kano Tsunenobu (1636–1713) made a copy of the Burke painting when it was still paired with a second scroll as a diptych (fig. 30).[5] That painting, now in a private collection in Japan,[6] depicts the orchids swaying to the left, that is, toward the Burke scroll, in which they move in the opposite direction.[7]
[Miyeko Murase 2000, Bridge of Dreams]
[1] Li 1962, pp. 49-76. [2] Kūgeshū, in Kamimura Kankō 1936, vol. 2, pp. 468, 175, 735–36. [3] "National fragrance" is a reference to the orchid. [4] Songs of the South 1985, pp. 273–74. The Enbushū,, a collection of Tesshū 's poems, includes other colophons that he wrote on his paintings. Curiously, while many of these are concerned with a wide range of subjects—animals, flowers, grapes, and landscapes—in none does the artist refer to his paintings of orchids. See Daizōkyō 1914–32, vol. 80, no. 2557. [5] Nakamura Tanio 1959c, p. 22; Nakamura Tanio 1972; and Nakamura Tanio 1973, pp. 65–66. [6] Nara Prefectural Museum of Art 1994, no. 42. [7] The Burke painting appears to have been trimmed slightly (about I cm [1/8 in.] on the right and left sides), resulting in the loss of the tips of the leaves on the right and a corner of the rock on the left.
Mary and Jackson Burke Foundation , New York (until 2015; donated to MMA)
New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "Japanese Art: Selections from the Mary and Jackson Burke Collection," November 7, 1975–January 4, 1976.
Seattle Art Museum. "Japanese Art: Selections from the Mary and Jackson Burke Collection," March 10–May 1, 1977.
Minneapolis Institute of Arts. "Japanese Art: Selections from the Mary and Jackson Burke Collection," June 1–July 17, 1977.
Tokyo National Museum. "Nihon bijutsu meihin ten: nyūyōku bāku korekushon," May 21, 1985–June 30, 1985.
Nagoya City Art Museum. "Nihon bijutsu meihin ten: nyūyōku bāku korekushon," August 17, 1985–September 23, 1985.
Atami. MOA Museum of Art. "Nihon bijutsu meihin ten: nyūyōku bāku korekushon," September 29, 1985–October 27, 1985.
Hamamatsu City Museum of Art. "Nihon bijutsu meihin ten: nyūyōku bāku korekushon," November 12, 1985–December 1, 1985.
New York. Asia Society. "Art of Japan: Selections from the Burke Collection, pts. I and II," October 2, 1986–February 22, 1987.
New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "Japanese Ink Paintings from the Collection of Mary and Jackson Burke," February 15–June 25, 1989.
New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "Masterpieces of Japanese Art from The Mary Griggs Burke Collection," March 30–June 25, 2000.
Museum of Fine Arts, Gifu. "Enduring Legacy of Japanese Art: The Mary Griggs Burke Collection," July 5, 2005–August 19, 2005.
Hiroshima Prefectural Art Museum. "Enduring Legacy of Japanese Art: The Mary Griggs Burke Collection," October 4, 2005–December 11, 2005.
Tokyo Metropolitan Art Museum. "Enduring Legacy of Japanese Art: The Mary Griggs Burke Collection," January 24, 2006–March 5, 2006.
Miho Museum. "Enduring Legacy of Japanese Art: The Mary Griggs Burke Collection," March 15, 2006–June 11, 2006.
New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "Celebrating the Arts of Japan: The Mary Griggs Burke Collection," October 20, 2015–May 14, 2017.
Tsuji Nobuo 辻惟雄, Mary Griggs Burke, Nihon Keizai Shinbunsha 日本経済新聞社, and Gifu-ken Bijutsukan 岐阜県美術館. Nyūyōku Bāku korekushon-ten: Nihon no bi sanzennen no kagayaki ニューヨーク・バーク・コレクション展 : 日本の美三千年の輝き(Enduring legacy of Japanese art: The Mary Griggs Burke collection). Exh. cat. [Tokyo]: Nihon Keizai Shinbunsha, 2005, cat. no. 34.
Murase, Miyeko, Il Kim, Shi-yee Liu, Gratia Williams Nakahashi, Stephanie Wada, Soyoung Lee, and David Sensabaugh. Art Through a Lifetime: The Mary Griggs Burke Collection. Vol. 1, Japanese Paintings, Printed Works, Calligraphy. [New York]: Mary and Jackson Burke Foundation, [2013], p. 97, cat. no. 122.
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