Nanga
My natural placeSigned: Taiitsu Rôjin heidai
Seals: Rei Taiitsu
Technique: sumi on paper 106,7 x 29,7
Mounting: cream paper 167 x 29,7
Condition: A few holes at the top of the original mounting. Lightly creased, otherwise good
何法縛人吾不關
君看画是自然間
峰巒縮脚留餘地
淡墨穿林出遠山
My natural place
All the methods that restrict man don't apply to me,
What you see in this painting is my natural place.
Where peaks and ridges pull back, there is some elbow room;
Pale ink penetrates the forest, and distant mountains emerge. (Addiss)
Comp. Addiss # 22
Murase Taiitsu, a highly individual and unconventional bunjin artist can be regarded as the Confucianist literati equivalent of the Zenga master Sengai Gibon (1750-1837).
Taiitsu was born in Gifu Prefecture. He was the second son in a large, wealthy and educated farmers family. In 1821 Taiitsu went to Nagoya to study with doctor Murase Rissai (1792-1851), a brother of Murase Tôjô (1791-1852), who had been a student of Shinozaki Shôchiku (1781-1851) and of San'yô (1780-1832). Taiotsu went to Kyoto to stay with San'yô, likely introduced by Tôjô. After San'yô's death in 1832 he returned to Nagoya to teach. When in 1840 the Keidôkan School was established by Naruse Seiju, a lord of the Inuyama clan, Tôjô was appointed head and in 1842 he invited Taiotsu to become a teacher there.
When the feudal educational system was abandoned at the beginning of the Meiji period he lost his position as a Confucian teacher. Being unemployed, living far from Kyoto and Tokyo, Taiotsu was free to behave as he pleased and to paint as he wished, he received little attention from anybody but his small circle of pupils and friends.
His life is full of anecdotes of which most seem to be true. He made a career with apparently impromptu childlike naïve paintings and poems and perhaps he was the greatest individualist among the early Meiji painters.
Reference:
Addiss 1979
Oranda Jin 2015
Roberts p. 168
Araki p. 343
Price: ON REQUEST
