拍品专文
Hishida Shunso was born in Nagano Prefecture, and was first encouraged to pursue a career in art when Nakamura Fusetsu (1866-1943) saw his watercolors while he was still a student. Shunso went to Tokyo with his brother, received training in Kano school painting from Yuki Masaaki (1834-1904), and then entered the Tokyo Art School, the Ministry of Education-sponsored school where Masaaki taught. There he trained under the Kano painter Hashimoto Gaho (1835-1908), the yamato-e painter Kose Shoseki (1843-1919), and he studied art history with the school's headmaster, Okakura Tenshin (1862-1913). Shunso graduated in 1895, two classes behind his older colleagues Yokoyama Taikan (1868-1958) and Shimomura Kanzan (1873-1930).
Like his fellows, Shunso returned to the Art School to teach painting, and joined a mass resignation of the nihonga staff when Okakura was forced to resign his position due to complex political machinations. Shunso became a founding member of Okakura's next enterprise, the Japan Art Institute. The Institute was founded to provide mutual support and criticism to artists working to create a modern, Japanese-style painting. One result was morotai, a manner of painting developed by Shunso and Taikan that sought to creatively incorporate elements from Western painting into nihonga. Shunso traveled with Taikan to India in 1903 to study the roots of Japanese culture, then to America and Europe in 1904-1905 to study Western painting seeking further inspiration for morotai. Upon their return to Japan, Shunso and Taikan followed Okakura to a small seaside village where they worked in relative isolation. That isolation was broken when Taikan took Shunso back to Tokyo for medical assistance. Shunso remained in Tokyo only a couple of years when he succumbed to illness and died at the age of thirty-seven.
Morotai, the style of painting developed by Shunso and Taikan at the Japan Art Institute, was based upon the elimination of outline to favor layers of shaded color, through which season, atmosphere, weather and mood might better be expressed in traditional painting. At the end of his life, Shunso began introducing more decorative design elements into his work, which he juxtaposed with realistic description in the individual motifs. In 'Autumn grasses', probably a late work, decorative interests are served in the treatment of the sky and the patterning of earth and plants, though the leaves are rendered through layers of wet ink that conveys a sense of substance.
Like his fellows, Shunso returned to the Art School to teach painting, and joined a mass resignation of the nihonga staff when Okakura was forced to resign his position due to complex political machinations. Shunso became a founding member of Okakura's next enterprise, the Japan Art Institute. The Institute was founded to provide mutual support and criticism to artists working to create a modern, Japanese-style painting. One result was morotai, a manner of painting developed by Shunso and Taikan that sought to creatively incorporate elements from Western painting into nihonga. Shunso traveled with Taikan to India in 1903 to study the roots of Japanese culture, then to America and Europe in 1904-1905 to study Western painting seeking further inspiration for morotai. Upon their return to Japan, Shunso and Taikan followed Okakura to a small seaside village where they worked in relative isolation. That isolation was broken when Taikan took Shunso back to Tokyo for medical assistance. Shunso remained in Tokyo only a couple of years when he succumbed to illness and died at the age of thirty-seven.
Morotai, the style of painting developed by Shunso and Taikan at the Japan Art Institute, was based upon the elimination of outline to favor layers of shaded color, through which season, atmosphere, weather and mood might better be expressed in traditional painting. At the end of his life, Shunso began introducing more decorative design elements into his work, which he juxtaposed with realistic description in the individual motifs. In 'Autumn grasses', probably a late work, decorative interests are served in the treatment of the sky and the patterning of earth and plants, though the leaves are rendered through layers of wet ink that conveys a sense of substance.