OKUTANI SHŪSEKI (1871-1936)
Black and White Akita with Puppy
c. 1910–1920
42 x 14 1/4 in. (exclusive of mount)
72 x 20 1/2 in. (inclusive of mount)
Ink on paper
$ 6,850
In this painting, which depicts a seated Akita staring serenely at the viewer while her young puppy nurses, the modern Nihonga painter Okutani Shūseki references the oeuvre of the renowned Edo-period painter Nagasawa Rosetsu (1754–1799), known for his joyful, exuberant paintings of puppies at play. By contrast, the motif of a mother dog nursing her puppies, to which Rosetsu returned several times over his career, captures his subjects in a moment of quiet tenderness. In Shūseki’s study of this subject, perhaps modeled from a Rosetsu painting at Jōjuji Temple in Wakayama, the mother and puppy alike are painted with quick, dense strokes of ink that evoke their thick coats, while splashes of white gofun on the mother’s chest and front paws and the puppy’s nape and tail suggest light reflecting off the white fur. However, in contrast with Rosetsu’s emphasis on naturalism, Shūseki’s painting situates his subjects boldly within the realm of modern abstraction. The dogs are surrounded by a halo of unpainted paper, which sets them apart from the black background rendered in thick strokes of ink. While portions of the background are fully saturated, the upper left-hand corner and lower right-hand corner are painted with a dry brush, revealing the motion and energy of each stroke.
Like Rosetsu, Okutani Shūseki trained in the Maruyama school of painting in Kyoto. He was born in Osaka in 1871 as Okutani Tsunejirō and studied painting from a young age, first under the tutelage of Shige Shuntō (1833–1904) and then Mori Kansai (1814–1894). Shūseki was particularly known for his landscape paintings, which earned him awards at exhibitions held by the Young Painters’ Association (Seinen ega kyōkai) and the Japanese Painting Association (Nihon ega kyōkai). He was an avid painting instructor who trained many students over the Meiji, Taishō, and Shōwa periods. He also made a name for himself as an appraiser and certifier of Mori Kansai paintings. As a result, only a handful of his own paintings are extant, including works held in the collection of the Museum of Modern Art, Kyoto. Shūseki passed away in 1936 at the age of 65.
References:
McKelway, Matthew P. and Khanh Trinh. Rosetsu: Ferocious Brush. Munich: Prestel Verlag, 2018.
The British Museum. https://www.britishmuseum.org/collection/term/BIOG181149
