Matsumoto Ichiyō
Early Fall, 1932
Two-panel folding screen; mineral pigments, shell powder, and gold on silk
Size 68 x 74½ in. (172.5 x 189 cm)
T-5168
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Sealed at lower right Ichiyō 一洋 Zanchō (“Lingering Cicadas”), the Japanese title of this delicate, atmospheric screen, derives from a poetic term used in classical Chinese verse to evoke the...
Sealed at lower right Ichiyō 一洋
Zanchō (“Lingering Cicadas”), the Japanese title of this delicate, atmospheric screen, derives from a poetic term used in classical Chinese verse to evoke the moment when the height of summer has passed, yet, with the first hints of autumn already in the air, the cicadas’ calls continue to resonate. The image is one of transience. Matsumoto Ichiyō has not included cicadas in the composition itself but employed other seasonal markers to identify the time of year, appropriately enough in a work likely completed in late summer for exhibitions at a major state-sponsored exhibition in Tokyo and a subsequent showing in Kyoto.
Just to the right of the screen's central hinge, and again at lower right above the artist's seal, Matsumoto depicts clusters of nadeshiko (dianthus or fringed pink), their deeply cut petals rendered in the Nihonga manner as delicate white filaments radiating from crimson blossoms. One of the time-honored Aki no nanakusa (Seven Plants of Autumn), nadeshiko blooms from July through September and has long served in Japanese art and poetry as a familiar symbol of the transition from late summer to early autumn.
Matsumoto exploits the full decorative potential of Nihonga materials to transform a mountain stream into a richly patterned vision of early autumn. Brilliant passages of gunjō and rokushō, the prized mineral blues and greens of the Nihonga palette, describe the cool depths of the pool and the luxuriant late-summer foliage, while thin washes of translucent gofun shell powder catch the light across the water's surface, suggesting foam, eddies, and rippling currents. The composition alternates between boldly simplified forms and more naturalistic passages: trees and water are flattened into rhythmic patterns reminiscent of Rinpa design, while the rocks and intervening ground are modeled with greater subtlety. This interplay between decorative abstraction and observed nature animates the entire screen and lends particular energy to the rushing stream, a quality already noted by a contemporary reviewer when the work was first exhibited in 1932: “Matsumoto Ichiyō's Early Fall ... places emphasis on the sense of movement in a mountain stream. The artist reinforces this effect through the use of partial bokashi shading on the rocks.”
Born in Kyoto into a family engaged in the design of textile patterns for the dyeing industry (a background he shared with several leading Kyoto painters of his generation) Matsumoto Ichiyō studied at the Kyoto Municipal School of Arts and Crafts and the Kyoto Municipal Special School of Painting, predecessor of today's Kyoto City University of Arts. After graduating in 1915, he entered the studio of Yamamoto Shunkyo (1871–1933), training within the master's influential Sanae-kai group. The same year he made his debut at the Bunten, and between 1915 and 1951 exhibited no fewer than twenty-eight times in the Bunten and its successor national exhibitions.
Initially celebrated for elegant figure paintings informed by the courtly traditions of yamato-e, narrative scrolls painted with rich mineral pigments, Matsumoto went on to develop a distinctive modern style. From around 1931 he produced refined images of contemporary women, often depicted in the latest fashions, while simultaneously expanding his practice to encompass atmospheric landscape painting, exemplified by the present work exhibited in 1932. Among his most celebrated commissions, completed the same year, was the Tōju sensei go-eden (Illustrated Life of Nakae Tōju), created for Tōju Shrine in Shiga Prefecture and dedicated to the Confucian philosopher Nakae Tōju (1608–1648), revered as the “Sage of Ōmi.”
Matsumoto’s works are held by the Honolulu Museum of Art, the National Museum of Modern Art, Kyoto, and the National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo. In 2022 the Museum of Kyoto marked the seventieth anniversary of his death with a major retrospective exhibition that confirmed his reputation as one of the leading Nihonga painters active in Kyoto during the first half of the twentieth century.
Exhibited
Thirteenth Teiten national Art Exhibition, 1932 and Okazaki Park Industrial Promotion Hall, Kyoto, 1932
Published
Nittenshi 10 (History of the National Salon 10), 1983, p. 343 (no. 220); see also pp. 602 and 632–633 for exhibition dates and commentary.
Zanchō (“Lingering Cicadas”), the Japanese title of this delicate, atmospheric screen, derives from a poetic term used in classical Chinese verse to evoke the moment when the height of summer has passed, yet, with the first hints of autumn already in the air, the cicadas’ calls continue to resonate. The image is one of transience. Matsumoto Ichiyō has not included cicadas in the composition itself but employed other seasonal markers to identify the time of year, appropriately enough in a work likely completed in late summer for exhibitions at a major state-sponsored exhibition in Tokyo and a subsequent showing in Kyoto.
Just to the right of the screen's central hinge, and again at lower right above the artist's seal, Matsumoto depicts clusters of nadeshiko (dianthus or fringed pink), their deeply cut petals rendered in the Nihonga manner as delicate white filaments radiating from crimson blossoms. One of the time-honored Aki no nanakusa (Seven Plants of Autumn), nadeshiko blooms from July through September and has long served in Japanese art and poetry as a familiar symbol of the transition from late summer to early autumn.
Matsumoto exploits the full decorative potential of Nihonga materials to transform a mountain stream into a richly patterned vision of early autumn. Brilliant passages of gunjō and rokushō, the prized mineral blues and greens of the Nihonga palette, describe the cool depths of the pool and the luxuriant late-summer foliage, while thin washes of translucent gofun shell powder catch the light across the water's surface, suggesting foam, eddies, and rippling currents. The composition alternates between boldly simplified forms and more naturalistic passages: trees and water are flattened into rhythmic patterns reminiscent of Rinpa design, while the rocks and intervening ground are modeled with greater subtlety. This interplay between decorative abstraction and observed nature animates the entire screen and lends particular energy to the rushing stream, a quality already noted by a contemporary reviewer when the work was first exhibited in 1932: “Matsumoto Ichiyō's Early Fall ... places emphasis on the sense of movement in a mountain stream. The artist reinforces this effect through the use of partial bokashi shading on the rocks.”
Born in Kyoto into a family engaged in the design of textile patterns for the dyeing industry (a background he shared with several leading Kyoto painters of his generation) Matsumoto Ichiyō studied at the Kyoto Municipal School of Arts and Crafts and the Kyoto Municipal Special School of Painting, predecessor of today's Kyoto City University of Arts. After graduating in 1915, he entered the studio of Yamamoto Shunkyo (1871–1933), training within the master's influential Sanae-kai group. The same year he made his debut at the Bunten, and between 1915 and 1951 exhibited no fewer than twenty-eight times in the Bunten and its successor national exhibitions.
Initially celebrated for elegant figure paintings informed by the courtly traditions of yamato-e, narrative scrolls painted with rich mineral pigments, Matsumoto went on to develop a distinctive modern style. From around 1931 he produced refined images of contemporary women, often depicted in the latest fashions, while simultaneously expanding his practice to encompass atmospheric landscape painting, exemplified by the present work exhibited in 1932. Among his most celebrated commissions, completed the same year, was the Tōju sensei go-eden (Illustrated Life of Nakae Tōju), created for Tōju Shrine in Shiga Prefecture and dedicated to the Confucian philosopher Nakae Tōju (1608–1648), revered as the “Sage of Ōmi.”
Matsumoto’s works are held by the Honolulu Museum of Art, the National Museum of Modern Art, Kyoto, and the National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo. In 2022 the Museum of Kyoto marked the seventieth anniversary of his death with a major retrospective exhibition that confirmed his reputation as one of the leading Nihonga painters active in Kyoto during the first half of the twentieth century.
Exhibited
Thirteenth Teiten national Art Exhibition, 1932 and Okazaki Park Industrial Promotion Hall, Kyoto, 1932
Published
Nittenshi 10 (History of the National Salon 10), 1983, p. 343 (no. 220); see also pp. 602 and 632–633 for exhibition dates and commentary.