速水御舟

Born in 1894 the second son of an Asakusa-ku, Tokyo, pawnbroker Makita Ryōzaburō and wife Ito. Real name Makita Eiichi 栄一. Gyoshū became interested in the calligraphy, paintings, and antiques offered as pawn articles, and around 1905 began studying “maki-e” lacquer methods under the “maki-e” artist Matsumoto Kōun. In 1908 he entered a painting school in the neighborhood, Matsumoto Fūko’s Angadō Gajuku. The following year he became the adopted son of his maternal grandmother Hayami Kiku, and Matsumoto Fūko bestowed upon him the “gō (art name)” Kako 禾湖. In 1910 he entered his first work in an exhibition, “Koharu (Peaceful Day)” (Kuwayama Art Museum, Nagoya), displayed in the Tatsumi Gakai exhibition held by the new Nihonga (Japanese style painting) group of that name. Starting around this period he began developing a New Nanga style influenced by the older painter Imamura Shikō. The following year his work exhibited in the same exhibition was awarded the First Prize Virtuosity Award (一等褒賞) and was purchased by the Imperial Household Agency. He then joined the Kōjikai. His “Budding Forth” was rejected by the 1913 Bunten (Ministry of Education Fine Arts Exhibition) Ministry of Education exhibition (Bunten) but received a Third Prize Bronze in the following year’s Tatsumi Gakai exhibition. This led to Hara Sankei approving of his work and he began to receive a monthly study stipend from Sankei in 1914. Using this funding, he lodged in Nanzenji-machi, Kyoto city, and there practiced sketching with Ushida Keison and Omoda Seiju. The patron Naiki Seibei also provided support during his Kyoto period. He had previously changed his “gō” to Kōnen浩然and that year he changed it to Gyoshū. His entry “Nearby Village” (Tokyo National Museum) in the First Reorganized Inten (Japan Art Institute) exhibition in 1914 led to his being named a Friend of the institute. In 1917 he displayed “Six Themes from Around Kyoto” (later “Six Themes from Northern Kyoto”, destroyed), a work considered to be his early period masterpiece. The work was highly praised by Yokoyama Taikan, Shimomura Kanzan and others and he was nominated a Member of the institute. His work entered the following year, 1918, “Shūgakuin Village in North Kyoto” (Shiga Museum of Art) shows him shedding influence from Imamura Shikō and turning to a painting style based on ultramarine and yellow ochre. In 1919 he was hit by a train in Asakusa, resulting in the amputation of his left foot at the ankle. In 1920 his “Apprentice Geisha (‘Maiko’) in Kyoto” (also known as “Maiko Girl of Kyoto,” Tokyo National Museum) which assured the regard of later generations, evoked a mixed reaction, both for and against, for its intricately detailed depiction which led to the question of whether he should be expelled from the Nihon Bijutsuin (Japan Art Institute). Influence from the theories about realism espoused by his patron Naiki Seibei and influence by Sōdosha artists such as Kishida Ryūsei have been suggested as reasons for his complete shedding of the Shikō style and change to a new painting style. Given that at the time he frequently mentioned Dürer’s name, these changes can be seen as mainly Gyoshū treading the path needed to transform modern Nihonga. Two paintings from the following year, 1921, “Diptych: Rapid Waterfalls” (National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo) and “Chrysanthemums” (private collection) are major works that show him focusing on realist Nihonga expression. That same year he married Yoshida Iyo. The group of still-lifes he painted as parting presents to give to those who celebrated their wedding fully reveal his realist tendency in line with the attitude taken by Kishida Ryūsei and others. Ryūsei’s diary indicates that Gyoshū often interacted with Ryūsei until the 1923 Great Kantō Earthquake. Gyoshū had moved that year to lodgings at Heirinji, Nobidome, Musashino (present-day Saitama prefecture), as he planned the building of a new home. The earthquake and its aftermath prevented the construction, and Sankei terminated his research support funding. He continued painting at Heirinji and displayed eight works at the 1924 Reorganized Inten exhibition, including “View of Western Suburb of Tokyo” (1923, Aichi Prefectural Museum of Art). These still-lifes and landscape paintings give a sense of Gyoshū’s growing use of and research on Western painting style spatial expression. In 1925 he painted “Dancing in the Flames” (ICP, Yamatane Museum of Art, Tokyo) while he and his family were staying in Karuizawa. This is one of his major works whose symbolism arises from its fusion of realism and the decorative. This trend can be seen as the results of his study of Chinese Song and Yuan dynasty painting on the one hand, while on the other hand, his “Tree Trunk” (Reiyūkai Myōichi Collection, Tokyo) with its symbolically puzzling tree trunk shape reminiscent of female breasts and male sexual organs, shows ideas resembling those found in Picasso’s works. Similarly his “Houses in Kyoto, Houses in Nara” (1927, National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo) with its bold, simplified forms; “Emerald Mosses and Verdant Turf” (1928, Yamatane Museum of Art, Tokyo) indicating a new formal direction, and “Camellia Petals Scattering” (ICP, 1929, Yamatane Museum of Art) showing the pinnacle achievement of early Shōwa period Nihonga, can all be seen as major works that reveal his development of a uniquely Gyoshū method and philosophy that blends his interest in Cézanne and Cubism with elements learned from Momoyama period wall paintings and Rimpa. Gyoshū accompanied Yokoyama Taikan as part of the art ambassador entourage to the 1930 Exhibition of Japanese Art in Rome. There he experienced a wide array of art and is said to have been particularly impressed by early Renaissance art, and the arts of Ancient Greece and Egypt. Beginning the next year, his “Two Views of Woman 1,” “Two Views of Woman 2” (1931, Fukushima Prefectural Museum of Art) and “Beside the Flowers” (1932, Kabuki-za Corporation) show a new, innovative constructivist figural style. In 1934 he entered the symbolist work “Wild Flowers (Reverie)” (Tsurui Museum of Art, Niigata) in the Nihon Bijutsuin’s experimental works exhibition, and later, just as he sought a new direction as a member of the Shichigenkai and Seikōkai, he died of typhoid on March 20, 1935. He was 40 years old. Dissatisfied with the neo-classical trends of his period, Gyoshū’s perfected painting methods had the potential to express the true life force of beauty, all cut short by his early death. The Nihon Bijutsuin and the entire painting world of the time greatly mourned his death and the end of his reform of Nihonga. (Katsuyama Shigeru / Translated by Martha J. McClintock) (Published online: 2024-03-25)