“Fifty Mynah Birds by a Wintry Marsh” (Kankō hanbyaku zu)

This handscroll opens with a title written in archaistic seal script that reads “Kankō hanbyaku”寒皐半百図, which literally means, “A half-hundred Mynah Birds,” using the alternative name of kankō (literally, “Wintry Marsh”) to refer to what are usually called hahachō 叭々鳥in Japanese. The calligraphed title is followed by a painting of crested mynahs and the plum branches, mostly in ink with only minimal touches of color to accent their forms. Rendered in a naturalistic manner reminiscent of the Nagasaki school and indebted to Shen Nanpin, the work also displays calligraphic brushstrokes characteristic of Itsuzan’s hand. Yet Itsuzan departs from the commercial polish associated with the Nagasaki tradition by situating the scene within a more austere setting shaped by literati taste, which was especially favored in the Osaka and Kyoto region during the eighteenth century. This work resonates with the early seventeenth-century Mynah Birds screens in The Met’s collection (2013.21.1, .2).

Itsuzan Mokuin, a Sōtō Zen monk originally from Osaka, was admired for his painting, seal carving, and calligraphy, especially his mastery of seal script, on which he also published extensively as a scholar. He spent three years in Nagasaki beginning in 1748, during which he studied the style of Shen Nanpin, before returning to Osaka in 1754. Itsuzan is often thought to have had a possible influence on Jakuchū’s ink painting styles. The postscript is written by Ryū Kōbi, a calligrapher who served as Confucian scholar for the Hikone domain from 1756 to 1774 and who was active within literati circles. His inscriptions are also found on works by major artists such as Ike no Taiga and Maruyama Ōkyo.