Chinese Children Playing with an Elephant [left of a pair] late 18th-mid 19th century

Nagasawa Rosetsu painted "Chinese Children Playing with an Elephant" on a six-panel screen with ink and color on gold-leafed paper. The whimsical image portrays children clambering all over an elephant. Painted in Japan in the late 18th century, the image suggests a fascination with Chinese culture as well as an interest in the representation of exotic animals, which Japanese artists would likely have only known through second-hand accounts or images. The elephant is not depicted realistically, the artist clearly had no direct experience of the animal. Rosetsu, however, was a member of the iconoclastic Maruyama School. His teacher, Maruyama Okyo, encouraged artists to make realistic depictions based on direct observation, rather than stylistic conventions. Rosetsu’s choice to paint imaginary subject matter may have been a deliberate rejection of the institutional teaching of the school. By studying the history of art academies and movements, as well as the biographies of individual artists, we can better understand the social context in which art is produced and interpreted.