Yamamoto Baiitsu

Yamamoto Baiitsu (山本梅逸): Leading Nanga Painter of Owari Province

Yamamoto Baiitsu (山本梅逸, 1783–1856) was a Japanese painter of the Nanga (南画) school, the Japanese literati painting tradition. He was born in 1783 in Nagoya and died there in 1856 at the age of 75. In the history of Japanese art he is regarded as the representative Nanga painter of Owari Province, the region around Nagoya that formed its own center of literati painting in the 19th century.

Training in Nagoya and Access to Chinese Painting

Baiitsu received his first instruction from the Nagoya painter Yamamoto Rantei, who recognized his talent and referred him on to Zhang Yuejiao (張月樵). Decisive for his development, however, was the merchant and collector Kamiya Tenyū (神谷天遊), who opened his collection of Chinese painting to him. Direct study of original works from the Ming and Qing periods left a lasting mark on his oeuvre – an access that most Japanese painters of that time did not have, and which left them reliant on woodblock-print models and copies. In the house of Tenyū, Baiitsu also met Nakabayashi Chikutō (中林竹洞), who was seven years his senior; the two were bound by a lifelong friendship, and the literature usually mentions them together.

Between Literati Painting and Shijō Observation of Nature: Baiitsu's Pictorial Language

Baiitsu's painting combines two strands that otherwise run separately: the formal language of Chinese literati painting and the precise observation of nature of the Maruyama-Shijō school. From this arises a style of striking delicacy and elegance, which unfolds especially in bird-and-flower painting (Kachō-ga). His landscapes, too, follow Chinese models without descending into mere quotation.

Among his well-known works are the folding screen with red and white plum blossoms (1819), a depiction of a leopard (1830), the folding screen with Arashiyama and Takao (1832), a flowering plum tree (1834), and a bird-and-flower folding screen of the four seasons (1847).

Name Forms: 梅佚, 梅逸 and the Gō of the Painter

His given name was Ryō (亮), formally Shinryō (親亮), and his Azana was Meikei (明卿). As artist names he used, in succession, Shun'en (春園), Chikugan (竹厳), and finally Baiitsu, with the characters first written 梅佚, later 梅逸. In his later years further Gō were added, among them Baika Dōjin (梅華道人). For the comparison of a signature this sequence is essential: the same work may be signed differently depending on the time of its creation.

Heron and Chrysanthemum: An Autumn Painting

The chrysanthemum opens in the ninth month and is regarded as the last of the flowers before winter; together with a heron on a rock it forms one of the most tranquil autumn motifs of Japanese painting. The appeal lies in the contrast of materials: the raised plumage against the densely filled blossom, the hard edge of the rock against both. Whether such a painting is executed on silk or on paper changes its effect: silk carries fine gradations of color more softly, paper lets the brushstroke stand out more sharply. Both painting grounds are common in the Nanga tradition. Japanese hanging scrolls of this genre can be found at Densho in a changing selection.