A Kyōto
Geisha
Yamaguchi Soken , also called Takejirō (Japanese:山口 素絢; 1759,
Kyōto - 22 November 1818, Kyōto) was a Japanese painter of the
Shijō school . He was one of the "Ten Great Ones" (応門十哲; a reference to the Ten Great Disciples of
Confucius ), taught by
Maruyama Ōkyo .
[1]
Life and work
He was the son of a
kimono merchant. As a result, he came to specialize in pictures of women, and his skill at painting them became proverbial. He also created landscapes, pictures of birds and flowers and what, in Western art, would be known as
genre scenes. Many of these represent the life and customs of Kyoto in a light and witty way.
He also produced illustrated books; including Yamato jimbutsu gafu (大和人物画譜; roughly "Japanese Portrait Gallery", 1800) and Yamato jimbutsu gafu kōhen (大和人物画譜 後篇; roughly, "Human Figure Drawing", 1804), as well as a medical text translated from the Dutch.
Among his best known works are the
fusuma (sliding door) paintings he designed together with
Matsumura Keibun , entitled "Summer to Autumn; flowers and birds" (春秋花鳥図, 1813), which are currently held at the
Nezu Museum . Other pieces of his work are held in the permanent collections of the
British Museum ,
[2] the
Metropolitan Museum of Art ,
[3] the
University of Michigan Museum of Art ,
[4] the
Honolulu Museum of Art ,
[5] the
Brunnier Art Museum ,
[6] the
Brooklyn Museum ,
[7] the
Johnson Museum of Art ,
[8] the
Harvard Art Museums ,
[9] the
Los Angeles County Museum of Art ,
[10] the
Museum of Fine Arts, Boston ,
[11] the
Minneapolis Institute of Art ,
[12] the
Vanderbilt University Fine Arts Gallery Collection ,
[13] and the
Seattle Art Museum ,
[14] among others.
He was interred at the
Dannō-Hōrin-ji [
ja ] , a
Jōdo-shū temple in Kyōto.
Notes
^ The others were
Genki ,
Nagasawa Rosetsu , Yamaato Kakurei (fl.1790-1820),
Mori Tetsuzan [
ja ] ,
Yoshimura Kokei [
ja ] ,
Oku Bummei [
ja ] ,
Gessen ,
Nishimura Nantei [
ja ] , and
Watanabe Nangaku [
ja ] .
^
"drawing | British Museum" . The British Museum . Retrieved 2021-03-04 .
^
"Yamaguchi Soken | Soken Picture Album: The Plant Section | Japan | Edo period (1615–1868) | The Metropolitan Museum of Art" . www.metmuseum.org . Retrieved 2021-03-04 .
^
"Exchange: Japanese Beauty in a Red Maple Leaf Robe" . exchange.umma.umich.edu . Retrieved 2021-03-04 .
^
"Woman Reading a Letter, Modern Reproduction, from the series Home Life In Tokyo, from the series Home Life In Tokyo" . art.honolulumuseum.org . Retrieved 2021-03-04 .
^
"Iowa State Collections - Iowa State University" . umsm003.its.iastate.edu . Retrieved 2021-03-04 .
^
"Brooklyn Museum" . www.brooklynmuseum.org . Retrieved 2021-03-04 .
^
"Dojoji Engi (illustrations to the Legend of Dojoji)" . emuseum.cornell.edu . Retrieved 2021-03-04 .
^ Harvard.
"From the Harvard Art Museums' collections Soken gafu, Kusabana no bu (Album of Drawings by Soken, Section on Plants and Flowers)" . harvardartmuseums.org . Retrieved 2021-03-04 .
^
"Mount Fuji | LACMA Collections" . collections.lacma.org . Retrieved 2021-03-04 .
^
"Soken gafu sôka no bu" . collections.mfa.org . Retrieved 2021-03-04 .
^
"Working Girls, attr. Yamaguchi Soken ^ Minneapolis Institute of Art" . collections.artsmia.org . Retrieved 2021-03-04 .
^ Artstor.
"Artstor" . library.artstor.org . Retrieved 2021-03-04 .
^
"Works – Yamaguchi Soken – Artists – eMuseum" . art.seattleartmuseum.org . Retrieved 2021-03-04 .
Sources
Tazawa, Yutaka: "Yamaguchi Soken". In: Biographical Dictionary of Japanese Art . Kodansha International, 1981,
ISBN
0-87011-488-3 .
Laurance P. Roberts: "Soken". In: A Dictionary of Japanese Artists . Weatherhill, 1976,
ISBN
0-8348-0113-2 .
External links
International National Academics