Kishi Chikudo
Japanese, 1826-1897

Crows in Early Winter, n.d.
Ink and color on gold-leaf ground
66 1/2 x 23 5/8 x 5/8 in. each panel

SBMA, Museum purchase with funds provided by Priscilla Giesen, Lord and Lady Ridley-Tree and special funds
2002.7.1-2

RESEARCH PAPER

This is one of the two pairs of Japanese screens the Museum recently purchased and it is a major addition to our Japanese Art Collection as a fine example of "Kinpeki-shoheki-ga", paintings of sliding doors and screens of ink and color on gold-leaf ground, the painting format that first came into vogue during Momoyama Period (1568-1615). It was painted by Kishi Chikudo, who was active at the end of Edo Period (1615-1867) and the subsequent Meiji Period (1868-1912) in 19th Century. Following traditional decorative Yamato-e, or Japanese painting style, he created a composition by depicting lively crows, persimmon tree and other autumn plants around a brook, with abundant empty space, against the shimmering gold background. The contrast of black ink against the gold background is bold and strikingly beautiful. The screens of monumental size (approx. 5’ x 20’) such as this pair dominate as a focus in our Japanese Gallery.

How are the screens made?
Usually they come in pairs. There are six or eight panels in each screen and each panel is made of a light wood frame surrounding a latticework interior covered with several layers of paper. Over this foundation the painting is mounted. The real gold is used for the gold background. To make a very thin gold leaf, gold sheet of about 3" square are placed between the papers and pounded carefully. Then the paper surface is painted red to give the gold a richer tint and the gold leaves are glued to the paper with animal glue that is made by boiling animal hide in water. Held together with ingenious invisible paper hinges, a screen can be folded for storage or transportation, resulting in a monumental size painting light enough to be carried by a single person, ready to be displayed as needed.

History of Screen painting
Generally speaking, in light and airy Japanese architectures there are hardly any walls large enough for wall painting. Flexible walls such as sliding doors or folding screens are inserted as room dividers or a background for important personages, and it is in this format that the Japanese paintings have developed in a literally unlimited scale. However, unfortunately not too many older sliding doors or screens have survived. Because they were part of the buildings, they suffered the same fate as the wooden structures, to go up in flames when the buildings were ablaze.

The Shosoin Repository of Imperial Treasures in Nara contains several screens dated before the year 750 CE. Also we can see folding screens in rich coloring in the famous scrolls and illustrations during 11C and 12C such as hand scrolls of "Tale of Genji". In subsequent Kamakura Period (1185-1392) and Muromachi Period (1392-1568), the Zen monks were the chief travelers and transmitters of Chinese culture to Japan. The colorful style of earlier Japanese painting has now given way to the all-pervading Chinese fashion of forceful ink painting. Zen priest-painters painted sliding doors of Zen temples – mostly, black and white landscape. The screen of "Flowers and Birds of Four Seasons" painted by Sesshu (1420 –1506), the most famous painter of Muromachi Period, in the collection of Kyoto Museum is black ink on white paper ground.

But during Momoyama Period, with the advent of civil wars using new weapons, guns and canons, brought by Europeans, in a land that had known only light wooden architecture, there sprang up a series of strongly fortified castles with massive stonewalls, donjons, ramparts and moats. The thick stonewalls and small windows of the high donjon towers made the interiors gloomy and dark. These rooms were used as domestic quarters and in need of some bright decoration. At the same time, the lord of each castle wanted to impress his underlings and his enemies with a show of his might. In the war-torn capital, Kyoto and other parts of the country, the golden sliding doors and screens adorned big halls of reconstructed palaces and temples as well. The use of gold leaf as a background for the full color in painting became one of the distinguishing marks of the great Momoyama screens.

The beginnings of such decorative use of gold leaf you can see in Buddhist paintings and in lacquer wares. The use of a gold background was decoratively most effective and it suited the taste of the time. Needless to say, Japan produced gold in abundance then. Some scholar pointed out that there was the link between the sudden popularity of use of the gold background in screen painting in this period and the far older Byzantine mosaics and icons which also placed figures against a flat gold background. Elise Grilli quotes in his book Golden Screen Paintings of Japan the opinion of Sir George Sansom that after 1549, when the Portuguese missionaries under St. Francis Xavier landed in southern Japan, great quantities of European books, paintings and art objects were brought to Japan and it is not surprising that they stirred the Japanese artists’ imagination.

The major painters of the Momoyama screens are from Kano school. A series of talented painters such as Eitoku(1543-1590), Tanyu(1602-1674), Sanraku(1559-1635) established Kano school as Shogun appointed painters in Edo Period (1603-1868). Although later their style became too rigid and conventional, they were still the most influential painters throughout Edo Period and Meiji Period as well.

Artist Biography: Kishi, Chikudo (1826-97)
He was born third son of a retainer of the lord of Hikone, present Shiga Prefecture. He started his painter’s training under a local Kano school painter at eleven. At seventeen he went to Kyoto to study under Kano Eigaku (1790-1867), but he was dissatisfied with the rigid way Kano school taught and less than a year he left Eigaku and went to Kishi Renzan(1804-1859), who was the third generation head artist of Kishi school, established by Ganku (1756-1838). (We have his painting of a tiger in our collection) Chikudo persevered through more than ten years of training under Renzan to prove his worthiness. He became adopted son of Renzan by marrying his daughter in 1854, and five years later when Renzan died, Chikudo became the fourth generation head master of Kishi school. "Reputations of Kyoto Painters" published around 1855, describes Chikudo as a hard working and accomplished artist of good reputation. During the transitional time of Meiji Restoration of 1868, when all the artists experienced great hardship due to the social structure changes, he worked for Nishimura Sozaemon, the owner of Chiso, one of Kyoto’s most respected yuzen textile stores. Although lesser painters had worked for the yuzen industry before, the prominent artist like him furnishing designs for new products for both export and domestic purposes led to open the door for many other painters to work in this field. His hardship was short lived and he established himself as an important revered artist in Kyoto. In 1896, he was appointed to the Art Committee of the Imperial Household. He is specialized in landscapes and animals, particularly tigers.

Style and techniques
Kishi school’s emphasis is on the life-drawing and naturalism influenced by Maruyama Okyo (1733-1795) and Shijo school in Kyoto. Chikudo reportedly never left home without sketchbook and brushes. He left numerous preparatory sketches. They show Chikudo’s skills and intentions on depicting his subjects, such as animal or landscape in realistic way.

Observing the screens of crows, one may say Chikudo follows the laws of Japanese painting, that is, there should be in every painting the sentiment of active and passive, or light and shade. Some crows are in flight (active), others are on the branch of the persimmon tree, and some seem to be on the ground (passive). The gold background fills the major part of the painting, both as an undefined earth level at the bottom and above. Black masses of crows (shade) seem to be dancing against luxuriant gold background (light). The effect is stunningly dramatic.

Another characteristic of Japanese paintings is the expression of season and its sentiment. Japanese artists do not aim so much to reproduce the exact things as its sentiment. The false or fictitious is added to heighten the effect. Conventional use of red persimmon and maple, purple bellflower and pink bush clover, all suggest the season, that is, late autumn or early winter. The season evokes the sentiment of Mono-no-aware, a somber, melancholic mood.

The crows are sometimes considered to be bad omen in the West, but Japanese people regard crows as messengers of the gods. In the Kojiki (Oldest history book of Japan) there is mention of a crow that served as a guide for the army of the legendary emperor Jimmu who successfully drove his enemy from his island home. Here, Chikudo probably chose crows for the color contrast against the gold background, but also they are common birds you see everywhere. He seems to like ordinary animals for the subject, such as cows, horses, badgers, foxes, sparrows, etc.

In the screens of crows, his style gives an impression of realism, but his realism never allowed to interfere with the decorative aspect of the screen. It is a successful fusion of traditional aesthetics and Western practice of realism. With regard to Western art, Chikudo commented late in his life: " Today it is hard to distinguish Kano from Tosa, and so forth, because no one adheres to just one style and everything seems to have merged together. It is same thing with Western painting. If one were to digest it really well, as someone with a strong stomach can eat anything without getting sick, one can adopt Western painting techniques without making his paintings smell like the West." With a strong sense of self-identity, Chikudo adopted from Western art only that he believed was useful in creating an individual expression.We only know the screens were painted around 1895 when he painted his masterpieces such as " tigers", "Horses and cows" and "flower and birds" in Higashi Honganji Temple. Considering the size and expensive nature of materials, they must have been commissioned, but the details are not known.

Prepared for SBMA Docent Council by Kyoko Sweeney - October, 2002

Selected Bibliography

Grilli, Elise, Golden Screen Paintings of Japan, New York, 1962
Ohashi, Joho, Kishi Chikudo, Dawn of the painting circles in Meiji period Kyoto, Tokyo, 1987
Bowie, Henry P., On the Laws of Japanese Painting, New York, 1911
Stokstad, Marilyn, Art History, New York, 2002


SBMA CURATORIAL LABELS

Crows are revered in Japan as the messengers of the gods and are honored in traditional Shinto rites. They were depicted in art with increasing frequency in the Edo period (1615–1868), perhaps reflecting the rise of the middle class and their interest in subjects drawn from everyday life. As crows do not migrate in Japan, they accompany both the coldest of months and the first signs of spring in art.

Kishi Chikudō’s position as the fourth-generation head of the Kishi school in Kyoto allowed him imperial patronage, as well as that of temples and wealthy merchants. He based his style not just on his predecessors in the school, but also on drawing from life directly. Here, one sees his careful observation not only in the anatomy, poses, and surface textures of the crows, but also in the space around and between them, which is based on an understanding of the Western-style one point perspective.

As was often seen in screens beginning in the 19th century, Chikudō created a contrast between the two screens, with crows on the right landing calmly searching for food and water, and those on the other engaged in an energetic argument mid-air.

- Paths of Gold, 2018