At the end of his life, Ogata Kōrin – already mentioned as the master from whom the Rinpa school took its name – perhaps painted the most important irises in the history of art. The painting has been compared, in terms of subject and reputation, to Botticelli’s Primavera: through depiction of a rampant flowering, it inspires a sweet sensation of seasonal energy-draining regeneration and thoroughly give the idea of force of nature.
One of the distinguished features of the Rinpa art is the poetry of the seasons, whose compelling aspects are finely captured and described according a sanctified image of nature, in combination with the Buddhist notion of impermanence. That said, the spirit of the artworks under examination – one of which (the Nezu Museum’s one) maybe was particularly realized for the Kyoto Nishi Hongan-ji shrine that the artist himself usually visited -, needs to be understood in the light of the above description. The depiction takes the almost sacred moment of shining, magnificent bloom, otherwise affected by a pathetic note because of its ephemeral, transient, fleeting lifetime. The reality itself is perceived as being illusory and vague, in spite of the brilliant green and deep blue paint flecks vividly contrasting, but just for a stunning moment, against a no less shining background.
The painter drew inspiration from the poem entitled Ise Monogatari, and written between the 9th and 10th centuries, especially from the episode where Narihira – the protagonist – arrived, after travelling, at a place called Yatsuhashi and crossed by a river over which a multi-junction bridge had been built. Hundreds of flowers of the genus iris laevigata (kakitsubata in the Japanese translation, literally “bunny-ear like”) was sticking out, as a joy of the heart, from the waters of the river. The sublimest natural spectacle triggered for Narihira sweet and lonely memories, notably those of similar places in the loved Kyoto and of the wife away from him. It is precisely because he got sweept up in the nostalgia that he composed a poem of five lines, each starting with a syllable of the word kakitsubata.
Likewise the masterpieces authored by Tawaraya Sōtatsu, this being regarded as the founding member of the Rinpa school, even the Kōrin ones are inspired by poetry. However, whilst Kōrin’s subject holds some memory of the source of inspiration, it departs in so far as itself results in a self-reliant poetic expression. In fact, the narrative effort is minimized as it is the case when first the painter sketches the irises and the bridge, then the irises alone as a symbol of being in the peak of Spring and moving out of this into summer.
Ogata Kōrin, Irises at Yatsuhashi (Eight Bridges), after 1709, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York
As regards the pair of screens kept in the Metropolitan Museum, the artist rather decides to create a stricking contrast between the straight-edged geometry of the bridge with the flowers’ rounded-off one. The space positioning is diagonal, thus in accord with a characteristic feature of the Japanese art (keep in mind Hiroshige’s famous print discussed here). Note the diagonal dynamics: the observer does not stop on the flat horizon line, but is brought to make a movement from below upwards. According to Taoism, reality means development, motion, so that the horizontal lining, like the symmetry, is seen to resist any dynamism.
In addition, not everything is mimetically represented: human and river images are missing and the natural elements represented by water, air, sky, overall are summarized in the brightness of the golden backdrop. By the way, the latter is made quite valuable through the use of gold and silver, and this is a Rinpa school’s remarkable characteristic borrowed from the traditional yamato-e art. It is worth considering that in the Italian art prior to Giotto the golden backdrop was representative of an abstracted space, or heaven in a purely theological sense. This is somehow in line with the Japanese artwork under examination, the golden background of which turns out likewise to be an abstraction of the physical reality and a projection into a sacred dimension. The natural elements do take over a religious meaning, anymore.
Kōrin misses even the bridge in the pair of screens kept in the Tokyo Nezu Museum, and lets the calm undulation of the irises be the unique reference to the poetic narration. The representation is therefore stripped down to its bare essentials, once the nice-looking blooming becomes the expression of full spring reviving. The striking depiction at hand is enhanced by the sense of absence, in other words, by the void. In the Zen’s and Japanese art’s views, the void is more important than plenty, because the former allows the poetic feeling to loosely flow. After Van Gogh, the Japanese painters “are living in nature as if they themselves were flowers”. So, disregarding some minor details, the painter is better prone to grasp what is essential, as for flowers when open: he is rather driven to represent the energy contained in, than the flowers themselves, so that the subject becomes an unconstrained pure energy.
Ogata Kōrin (1658 – 1716) came from a wealthy cloth merchant family from Kyoto. Therefore, he could gain a basic level education, studying Kanō school and the Kyoto artists Hon’ami Kōetsu (1558-1637) and Tawaraya Sōtatsu (died about 1640). He first practiced painting with the copy of Tawaraya Sōtatsu’s artworks and then managed to assume style and technique of what the “Rinpa” school – named after his name – was going to be. Kōrin was the one, in fact, that led Sōtatsu’s decorativism and impressionism to an outcome of extreme sublimation.
Copyright © arteingiappone – All rights reserved