平福百穂

Born in 1877 (Meiji 10) in Kakunodate-machi, Akita prefecture, the fourth child of the Maruyama-Shijō school painter Suian and his wife Setsu. Real name Teizō. In 1890 Suian fell ill and returned to his hometown from Tokyo, teaching Teizō how to paint in the brief period before his death that same year. After his father’s death Teizō was able to take up painting thanks to the efforts of a patron. Suzuki Hyakunen recognized Teizō’s painting prowess in a 1891 painting competition, and that led to Teizō creating a “gō” (art name) using the characters Hyaku and Sui from Hyakunen and Suian’s names. In 1894 Hyakusui moved to Tokyo and became a resident disciple of the Maruyama-Shijō painter Kawabata Gyokushō. That same year he displayed history paintings at a number of exhibitions, including the Nihon Seinenkai Kaiga Kyōkai (Japan Youth Painting Association) and Nihon Kaiga Kyōkai (Japan Painting Association), winning several awards, including a Third Prize for his “Takeru-no-mikoto chū Kyōsui” (Takeru-no-Mikoto Subduing Kyosui) (private collection). He entered the Nihonga (Japanese-Style Painting) Department’s second year elective course at Tokyo Bijutsu Gakkō (Tokyo Fine Arts School, present-day Tokyo University of the Arts) in 1897. In 1898 he saw the Western-style painter Kosaka Shōdō’s “Poultry Raising” (whereabouts unknown) and was impressed by his modern, realistic depiction of an everyday scene. Hyakusui discerned in such painting his own future path, and painted “Country Wedding Procession” 1899, Tokyo University of the Arts) as his graduation work. After graduating, he returned to his hometown in line with the wishes of Segawa Yasugorō, the patron who supported his study in Tokyo. In 1900 he joined Yūki Somei, Fukui Kōtei and other fellow painters to form the Museikai artists’ group. Starting the following year he began to send illustrations to “Shinsei,” a literary magazine founded by Satō Giryō, also from Kakunodate. In 1901 he decided to move back to Tokyo, where he created paintings in the Museikai, which advocated naturalism, while working as the head of the Shinseisha publishing company’s illustration department. He used charcoal on linen to draw “Don’t Push! Don’t Push!” (1907, Hirafuku Memorial Museum of Art in Kakunodate, Akita) and painted “Ainu” (1907, private collection) on silk that he stretched on site when visiting Hokkaido. These works are filled with a sense of their artist’s study interests as he concentrated on using extemporaneous sketch-like brushstrokes to convey an immediate impression of a scene. His paintings were considered radical experiments even among the works produced by other Museikai members. Determined to study sketching from life, in 1902 he began studying in the Western-style Painting Department of the Tokyo Bijutsu Gakkō and starting in 1904 he attended night classes at the Taiheiyō Gakai Kenkyūjo (Pacific Painting Association Institute), focusing on learning about drawings as he studied Western-style painting. With the inauguration of the Ministry of Education Fine Arts Exhibition (Bunten), he hoped to have a work accepted for display, and received his first acceptance for “Ainu” (National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo) in the Third Bunten held in 1909. While his entry was rejected for the Fourth Bunten, he continued to experiment with a light and easy style reminiscent of the Maruyama-Shijō “tsuketate” brush style or Rimpa school “tarashikomi” ink puddling, as seen in his image of farm wives “Time of Geum” (1910, Hirafuku Memorial Museum of Art in Kakunodate, Akita) and his entry in the 5th Bunten “Tomato and Taro” (1911, Fukushima Prefectural Museum of Art). Around this time he combined his painting production with the creation of illustrations for “Shinsei,” “Shinchō,” and other newspapers and magazines. Through Ishii Hakutei, he also participated in the art and literary magazine “Hōsun.” His renown as a vivid sketcher of military exercises and parliament grew after he began working for the Kokumin Shimbun newspaper company in 1907. He had a change of heart around 1912, and with a strong sense that he wanted to focus on his paintings, he moved to a house with a big studio in Onden (present-day Jingūmae, Shibuya-ku, Tokyo) and gradually began to limit the work he did for the newspaper companies. His further study of painting with traditional Japanese paint brushes resulted in his ability to use “tarashikomi” ink puddling to evoke the feel of feathers in his Tokyo Taishō Hakurankai (Tokyo Taishō Exposition) entry “Ducks” (1914, Seikado Bunko Art Museum, Tokyo) and his Eighth Bunten entry, “Turkeys” (1914, private collection). Both works attracted attention and “Turkeys” was awarded Third Prize. His Ninth Bunten entry, “Morning Dew” (1915, The Museum of the Imperial Collections Sannomaru Shozokan, Tokyo), was purchased by the Imperial Household Ministry, fully confirming his position in painting circles. After the stalling and changes that took place in the Museikai, the group’s last exhibition, their thirteenth, was held in 1913. In 1914 Hyakusui, Kawabata Ryushi, Morita Tsunetomo and others formed the Sangokai as a place to exhibit their works. That same year he participated in the Mangakai formed by Okamoto Ippei who was then employed by a newspaper company, and others. In 1916 he participated in the formation of the Kinreisha, a group organized by Taguchi Kikutei, founder of “Chūō Bijutsu” magazine, Hyakusui and four other artists — Yūki Somei, Kaburaki Kiyokata, Kikkawa Reika, and Matsuoka Eikyū — who banded together in spite of their style and group affiliation differences. Amid the energetic production and display of works that followed, Hyakusui turned to studying the classics in both style and themes, particularly through the Kinreisha’s frequent holding of study groups on art history and ancient history. As a result he displayed a Rimpa style “Flock of Crows” (1917, Akita Museum of Modern Art), a Japanese foundational myth subject work painted in light colors “Yamato Takeru no Mikoto, Sagami no Umi, Shiratori no Misasagi” (1918, Akita Museum of Modern Art), and a full-color rendering of a theme from the “Man’yōshū” ancient poetry anthology “Hunting” (1920, The Miyagi Museum of Art). During that period he received a “tokusen” special mention award for his work “Yu Rang” (Important Cultural Property [ICP], Eisei Bunko Museum, Tokyo) entered in the Eleventh Bunten. This work based on a rubbing from the Han dynasty Wu Family Tombs and a copy of the Eastern Jin dynasty “Admonitions Scroll” borrowed from Kikkawa Reika can be positioned as an ambitious piece from his Kinreisha period. He then did not submit works to the government-sponsored exhibitions for quite a while, going unjudged for the 1919 Teikoku Bijutsuin Tenrankai (Teiten, Imperial Fine Arts Academy Exhibition), the reorganized incarnation of the Bunten, and serving as a Teiten judging committee member from 1923 onwards. He shifted his production focus to unofficial group exhibitions, expanding both his subjects and methods used, and in terms of his view on sketching from life, his consideration of the link between sketching and the understanding of traditions further deepened. It was also around this time that what can be called New Nanga, a new literati painting style with narrow, flowing brushed lines and light color palette, can be seen in works such as his view of Tōhoku scenery “Green Mountains, White Clouds” (1919, Miyagi Museum of Art), and “Near Ikaruga” (1920, private collection), which depicts a region linked to Shōtoku Taishi. After this busy period when he built a new painting school Hakudensha in Setagaya Mishuku, Tokyo and was helping establish a middle school in his hometown of Kakunodate, he entered a work, “Rough Coast” (National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo) in the 1926 Seventh Teiten exhibition, his first entry in a government-sponsored exhibition in eight years. He continued that same year with “Crane and Blue Waves” (National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo), painted in celebration of the Taishō Emperor’s 25th Wedding Anniversary. He challenged himself with a fusion of realism and decorative quality in this painting whose composition contrasts the stillness of a boulder with the dynamic movement of waves, and the ink “tarashikomi” on the boulders with the ultramarine and gold paint used on the waves. While this same densely colored expression appears in his later “Tamagashiwa” (1928, The Museum of the Imperial Collections Sannomaru Shozokan), commissioned for use in the imperial enthronement ceremony, conversely, he sought an ink brushstroke-centered painting style during the Shōwa era, displaying a pale, stringent sensibility in such works as his Eighth Teiten entry “Shintō” (1927, private collection) and his Tenth Teiten entry “Ikkyū in Katata” (1929, National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo). In addition to three paintings created for the 1930 Exhibition of Japanese Art in Rome, including “Rough Coast” (Santa Giulia Museum, Brescia, Italy) and “Little Cuckoos Singing at Night” (Miyagi Museum of Art), he also painted "fusuma" panels for the venue interior. He spent time visiting various countries in Europe as an exhibition committee member and Japanese Ministry of Education-funded overseas study scholar. His approximately six months overseas reconfirmed for Hyakusui the Japanese attitude towards nature and Japanese art aesthetics underscored by that attitude. After returning to Japan, in works such as “Clematis” (1913, Akita Senshu Museum of Art) and “Spring Mountain” (1933, Akita Museum of Modern Art), he once again challenged himself to depict nature itself, from birds, beasts, flowers and trees to a single mountain, seeking to create paintings that fully conveyed the life force of each. In 1929 he was appointed professor at Teikoku Bijutsu Gakkō (Imperial Art School, present-day Tama Art University, Tokyo) and later appointed professor at Tokyo Fine Arts School. Amid these responsibilities and a busy painting life, such as participating in the 1930 formation of the Shichigenkai group, he fell ill and was examined by Saitō Mokichi, a medical doctor and poet. In October 1933, he received the news that his older brother was gravely ill and immediately set out for Yokotemachi, Akita prefecture. Once there, however, his own health also declined. On October 30, 1933, he died from an intracranial hemorrhage. He was 55 years old. Hyakusui broke new ground with his works combining realistic depiction with traditional methods, all while revealing the inner meaning of their subjects. Not only was he involved in painting production, he also closely interacted with Saitō Mokichi who heralded a realist poetic theory (“jissō kannyū”) and Araragi movement poets, with his own poetry anthology “Kanchiku” (Kokon Shoin) published as the 30th volume of the “Araragi Sōsho.” He was also a pioneering scholar on the subject of Akita Ranga, beginning with his publication of an article ‘Odano Naotake, a pre-Shiba Kōkan Western-style Painter’ in the 1903 “Bijutsu Shinpō” 2-17 issue. In 1930 he published the compilation of those studies, “Nihon Yōga Shokō” (Iwanami Shoten). The works of Hyakusui, his father Suian and other local painters are collected and displayed in the Hirafuku Memorial Museum of Art, Kakunodate Town, Senboku City. (Kanno Hitomi / Translated by Martha J. McClintock) (Published online: 2024-03-06)