下村観山

Shimomura Kanzan was born in Wakayama city, Wakayama, the third son of the Shimomura family of the Kotsuzumikata Kōryū school of Noh theater performers whose many generations had served the Kii clan. His real name was Seizaburō. His eldest brother Kiyotoki was a Noh mask carver who later became a sculptor and used the “gō” (art name) Hōzan, and his second eldest brother Tokiari later became a sculptor and used the “gō” Eizan. The family lost its livelihood with the collapse of the shogunal clan political system, and in 1881 the entire family moved to Tokyo. His father made a living carving seals and ivory carvings for export. Around this time Kanzan began to study Noh chanting, and was initiated into painting by his grandfather’s friend Fujiwara Tsuneoki. Given that Tsuneoki was a technician rather than a painter, Kanzan almost immediately turned to Kanō Hōgai in search of real painting instruction. Kanzan studied under Hōgai and then Hashimoto Gahō through an introduction from Hōgai, honing his painting skills through the Kanō school method of making close copies of earlier painters’ works (“funpon rinmo”). Hōgai granted Kanzan the “gō” Hokushinsai Tōshū and there are several extant copies by the young Kanzan which bear that “gō.” In 1886, the then thirteen-year-old Kanzan entered a landscape painting in the Kangakai (Kanga Society) organized by Ernest F. Fenollosa and was praised for his display of youthful prowess. The Tokyo Bijutsu Gakkō (Tokyo Fine Arts School, present-day Tokyo University of the Art) opened in 1889 and Kanzan, along with Yokoyama Taikan and others, was one of the first students admitted. Kanzan studied under Okakura Tenshin (Kakuzō), who was appointed principal of the school in 1890. Kanzan is said to have begun using his Kanzan art name around the time that he entered Tokyo Fine Arts School. Kanzan had learned Kanō school brushwork methods in his youth, and enthusiastically studied Yamato-e painting at the art school as he sought a harmonious, gentle color palette and elegantly flowing line work. As seen in his graduation painting on a Noh theme, “Lady Yuya Going to See Cherry Blossoms (From the Tale of Heike)” (1894, Tokyo University of the Arts) and “Nichiren Preaching in the Street” (1894, Tokyo University of the Arts), his adroit combination of various elements learned from classic Japanese painting was heightened by his own novel compositions, vividly conveying figural groups in elegantly pure colors. In 1898 when the internal discord at the Tokyo Fine Arts School reached its peak, Okakura Tenshin resigned as principal. Kanzan, Yokoyama Taikan, Hishida Shunsō, and other faculty members followed suit. Tenshin and others then established the Nihon Bijutsuin (Japan Art Institute). For the first exhibition of the new organization Kanzan entered “Cremation of the Buddha” (1898, Yokohama Museum of Art) which, along with Taikan’s “Qu Yuan” (1898, Itsukushima Shrine, Hiroshima), was awarded the the exhibition’s top prize Silver Medal. Fenollosa extolled these works, “But among many other praiseworthy attempts the two great triumphs of the exhibition are the works which break away from all tradition whatever, Japanese or foreign, and realize with overwhelming power and by original handling hitherto untouched Oriental subjects.” (November 12, 1898): 488–489. Reprinted in “Ernest Francisco Fenollosa: Published Writings in English in 3 volumes,” Tokyo: Edition Synapse, 2009, vol. 2, no. 32.) High praise for the first buds of a new Japanese painting. With a full awareness of Western painting ideas, early period Nihon Bijutsuin artists experimented with a method of outline free, blurry color fields as a way to convey atmosphere and light rays. These efforts were decried as “mōrōtai,” literally indistinct and indecipherable, and the art community was swept up in a debate between supporters and detractors of the new method. All the while Kanzan painted raditional Japanese painting style brush line-centered works, such as “Genroku Beauties” (1899, Right screen: Sekisui Museum, Mie, Left screen: private collection). As can be seen in his joint work with Taikan, “Mt. Penglai with the Sun and the Moon” (1900, Shizuoka Prefectural Museum of Art) he was also involved during this period in works that were thoroughly in the line-free method. As seen in “Kasugano” (1900, Yokoyama Museum of Art) and others he steadfastly advanced in his own methods, displaying eclectic works that adroitly fused backgrounds done in line-free technique with major motifs drawn in detailed line work. In 1902 the year after he returned to the Tokyo Fine Arts School, the Japanese Ministry of Education awarded him a two-year study period in England, so he traveled there in 1903. With the primary aim of learning about color, he studied Western paintings and made copies. His “Copy of ‘The Madonna of the Chair’ (after Raphael Sanzio)” (National Gallery, London, original in the Palatine Gallery, Pitti Palace, Florence), (1904, Yokohama Museum of Art) and a work he produced as he traveled through Europe on his way home from his studies, “Copy of ‘The Madonna of the Goldfinch’ (after Raphael Sanzio)” (1905, Yokohama Museum of Art) — which he had copied on site at the Uffizi Gallery, Florence — reveal the heights of Kanzan’s technical skill at copying the soft shading of the original oil paintings in the medium of water-based pigments on silk. On the other hand, the activities of the Nihon Bijutsuin, founded with the aim of creating a new form of Japanese painting, gradually stagnated, and it was pressed for funds in 1903. It moved its operations to Izura, Ibaraki prefecture in 1906, the year after Kanzan’s return to Japan, and in turn, Kanzan moved his family to Izura. As a member of the judging committee, Kanzan entered “Autumn Among Trees” (1907, National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo) in the First Ministry of Education Art Exhibition (Bunten). He took his subject matter from the copsewood grove in Izura, and the painting’s fusion of intricately rendered naturalist depiction and Rinpa-esque decorativeness was highly acclaimed. Kanzan used both traditional Japanese pigments and Western pigments for this work painted in a traditional, gold ground, two-panel screens pair format. The field of straight-trunked trees depicted on both screens seems to expand horizontally, while his use of an atmospheric perspective, with foreground densely rendered and the distance rendered in pale forms, draws the viewer’s gaze into the depths of the grove. Thus it is an epoch-making work that reveals the results of his study in Europe as well as his superb training in classical methods. “Mt. Ogura” (Yokohama Museum of Art), a pair of six-panel screens entered in the 1909 Kokuga Gyokuseikai Kenkyūkai’s exhibition, shows his tendency towards an all the more antiquarian trend, taking its subject from a “waka” poem by Fujiwara no Tadahira, “Teishinkō,” which was selected for the “One Hundred Verses by One Hundred Poets” anthology. The right screen portrays Teishinkō seated amidst a complex tangle of trees and maple leaves in a lovely fusion of a Heian period figure based on his study of the classics and images of the natural world based on sketching from nature. The left screen, on the other hand, reveals a psychological realm through its use of a massive negative space, which foretells Kanzan’s later works. In 1913 Tenshin died, and Kanzan and Taikan set out to revive the Nihon Bijutsuin, which at that point remained in name only. At the invitation of the industrialist Hara Sankei whom Kanzan had met via Tenshin, late that year Kanzan built a new house at Wadayama, Honmoku, Yokohama, and moved there. Sankei continued to support Kanzan’s painting production, and their interactions continued for the rest of Kanzan’s life. In 1914 Taikan, Kimura Buzan, Yasuda Yukihiko, Imamura Shikō, and the Western-style painter Kosugi Misei (Hōan) formed the Saikō Nihon Bijutsuin (Reorganized Japan Art Institute). Kanzan displayed his major works in the Reorganized Inten (Japan Art Institute Exhibitions), namely “White Fox” (1914, First Reoganized Inten, Tokyo National Museum), “Scene from the Noh Play "Yoroboshi” (ICP, 1915, Second Reorganized Inten, Tokyo National Museum), and “Spring Rain” (1916, Third Reorganized Inten). All of these pair of screens format works include spatial expression via a boundless area of white occupying much of the composition, whereby he achieved a unique personal painting realm filled with a quiet, highly spiritual sensibility reminiscent of the Noh theater worldview connected to his own origins. Later he gradually tended towards the withered, pale painting style of Song and Yuan paintings, or religious figure and Buddhist painting themes, which sought the rare qualities of line work created through subdued ink tone modulation. Around 1921 his health began to fail, and he never fully recovered from this decline. After completing his final work, “Bamboo Shoots” (1930, private collection), resonant with the Chinese imperial court painting style use of simple wire-thin lines and refined color palette, his life ended at the age of 57. (Uchiyama Junko / Translated by Martha J. McClintock) (Published online: 2025-02-10)