Autumn flowers and grasses reach up from the foreground as if seeking to unite with the shining orb above. Although done in ink alone, the variations in brushwork and ink tonality create a richly colorful scene. The assured composition, which features diagonals balanced by contrasting curves, identifies the artist as an accomplished technician, one who placed his highly developed skills in service of a very refined aesthetic sensibility. A lesser artist might well have been tempted to increase the number and extant of the pictorial elements, the better to display his talents—to add feet to the snake, as the old Chinese tale has it–while the present artist sought, and achieved, a perfect balance of the competing aims of naturalism and abstraction.
Suzuki Kiitsu (1796-1858) was born in Omi province, the son of a dyer who later moved his shop to Edo. Working first as a dyer, Kiitsu invented the technique of murasaki-zome or dying with purple. Kiitsu was then adopted by the samurai Suzuki Reitan (1782-1817), who was an attendant to Sakai Hoitsu (1761-1828), second son of Lord Sakai of Himeji Castle in Harima province. In 1813 Kiitsu became a live-in disciple of Hoitsu and soon came to be regarded as the most promising student of the master. When Reitan died in 1817, Hoitsu arranged Kiitsu’s marriage to Reitan’s sister, Riyo, which allowed Kiitsu to succeed to his father’s position within the Sakai clan and to serve Hoitsu until the latter’s death in 1828. Between 1817 and 1828 Kiitsu studied tea ceremony and haiku poetry under Hoitsu and associated with such literati masters as Kameda Bosai (1752-1826) and Ota Shokusanjin. Many of Kiitsu’s early works bear inscriptions by them as well as by Hoitsu.1 During this period Hoitsu gave Kiitsu the by-name Niwabyoshi, which was later used by his own son, Shuitsu. Seven extant letters from Hoitsu to Kiitsu shed fascinating light on the relationship between them, since they request Kiitsu to execute paintings on behalf of Hoitsu.
The present painting is signed Seisei Kiitsu, a name he began to use around the year 1844, which gives an approximate dating for the painting. Kiitsu was then a full master of his art, with superb technique and a well-honed and individual artistic vision.
1. For a painting of “Camellia Spray” by Kiitsu with colophon by Kameda Bosai, see Kaikodo Journal I, Spring, 1996, cat. 43, p. 93.
Details:
其一筆
月秋草
“Kiitsu painted
‘Moon and Autumn Grasses’”
三百〇弐號
“Number 302”