Day 94 - Deer and maples scroll painting


October 1, 2018

I'm a bit confused about how the gallery numbers posted in the museum correspond, or don't, with those shown on the museum map. So I am not sure exactly where gallery 227 begins and ends. In any event, the works shown are part of a larger collection and share the theme "The Poetry of Nature." The paintings are from the Edo period (1615-1868), Edo being the former name of Tokyo. They exemplify several schools of painting, which I must say that I find difficult to distinguish. Many of them also reflect Chinese influence, and I am not sure I would be able to tell some of the Japanese landscapes from Chinese ones; they adopt similar motifs (mountains, waterfalls, streams, gentlemen drinking tea in pavillions, etc.). That said, one landscape depicting these motifs is painted on a 12-panel screen, and I don't recall seeing screen paintings in the Chinese galleries, while the Japanese galleries are full of them. A distinctly common-sense, non-connoisseur-like approach to the problem!

Today's object is a paintng on a hanging scroll (now that is Chinese-y!) by the painter Marutama Okyo, made in 1787. It shows two white-tailed deer, the antlered male standing, the doe lying down, framed under the bough of a red maple tree. Indeed, the red leaves of the maple are the only bright touch in a painting that is otherwise characterized by neutral tones (the bodies of the deer, the tree trunks) or by pastel ones (the light green of leaves that haven't yet turned, a pale blue stream). 

I remember James Ackerman, when I audited Fine Arts 13, making a distinction between "painterly" painters, whose work is marked by freedom in the use of the brush, and those painters who adopted a more linear style. This painting clearly fits into the latter category; the bodies of the deer are clearly defined by carefully drawn lines. Innumerable fine lines, rather than  splotches of color, indicate the hairs on their skins. 

The refinement of the drawing  and its graceful proportions (perhaps 36" by 20") make for a feeling of calm and peacefulness. The caption explains that deer are associated with autumn in Japanese poetry, and the image creates a sense of the fullness of the season. 

The one element I find discordant is the lichen-crusted rock in the lower left-hand corner. I suppose the painter wanted to use it to balance the composition, but it seems awkward and out of place to me. 

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