painting, ink
water colours
painting
asian-art
landscape
ukiyo-e
figuration
ink
Dimensions 48 7/16 x 23 1/4 in. (123.03 x 59.06 cm) (image)82 1/2 x 32 1/2 in. (209.55 x 82.55 cm) (sheet)
Sakai Hōitsu created "Narihira Riding Below Fuji" using ink and color on silk. The composition arranges its figures to suggest depth and distance. The mountain is a pale outline, while the rider and his attendants occupy the foreground with rich color and detail. The work reflects the Rinpa school’s decorative style. Notice the interplay between the abstract rendering of Mount Fuji and the representational figures. The flat, almost geometric form of the mountain contrasts with the naturalistic depiction of the horse and riders, creating a tension between the real and the ideal. The semiotic system here employs familiar signs: Mount Fuji as a symbol of Japan, the elegant rider as a figure of courtly refinement. The visual structure of this work, with its blend of abstraction and representation, challenges the viewer to reconcile different modes of seeing and understanding. This tension embodies a broader artistic and philosophical discourse about the nature of perception and the representation of reality.
Comments
Sakai Hōitsu was the son of the Lord of Himeiji. After mastering several painting styles, he became interested in the decorative Rinpa school, named after one of its greatest masters, Ogata Korin. Searching out remaining works by Korin, who had died forty-five years before Hōitsu's birth, he published a woodblock book of Korin's works. This painting, with its classical theme, softly rounded forms and beautiful colors, continues the style championed by Korin. The painting illustrates Ariwara Narihira (825-80), the famously handsome ninth century poet who, it is said, was banished from court for having an affair with an imperial consort. While traveling to his exile in the deep north, Narihira passed beneath Mount Fuji, cloaked in newly fallen snow. Noting the strangeness of snow so close to summer, Narihira composed the following poem: Fuji is a mountainthat has no sense of time.What season does it take this forThat it should be dappled with newly fallen snow'
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