Born in Nagoya, the son of a sculptor who served the Owari or Nagoya branch of the Tokugawa clan, Yamamoto Baiitsu early on evidenced talent in painting and studied with Yamamoto Rantei (active mid‑19th century), a local Kano‑school painter, and then with Cho Gessho (1772–1832). But it was likely his relationship with Kamiya Ten’yu, a wealthy merchant and collector of old paintings, that gave greatest impetus to the development of Baiitsu’s career. In company with his close friend Nakabayashi Chikuto (1776–1853). 1 Baiitsu studied early paintings and was introduced to the literati arts and values by Ten’yu and his circle of friends.
After the death of Ten’yu, Baiitsu and Chikuto moved to Kyoto in 1803 and quickly became acquainted with literati circles and activities in that city. Although Baiitsu periodically returned to Nagoya, he was mainly in Kyoto during the period 1832–1854 and acquired an admirable reputation as an elegant literatus, knowledgeable about the sencha tea ceremony, collector of tea utensils, performer with yokobue flute, and poet who composed both Chinese‑style verse as well as Japanese waka.
One such import that loomed large in Baiitsu’s life and creative imagination was a “Landscape after Shen Chou” painted in 1643 by the late Ming dynasty master Yang Wen‑tsung (1597–1654), a work now in the Toyama Art Museum in Saitama prefecture (fig. 1). 2 Baiitsu was eventually able to acquire the painting by selling some of his family assets. The close association of Yang’s painting with Baiitsu is demonstrated by its presence in the tokonoma alcove of Baiitsu’s study in a sketch drawn in 1917 by Tomioka Tessai (1836–1924) (fig. 2), who noted that the painting was Baiitsu’s prize possession. 3
1. Patricia Graham, Yamamoto Baiitsu: His Life, Literati Pursuits, and Related Paintings, unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, University of Kansas, 1983.
2. The composition is also known through several reduced-size reproductions held in collections in Japan and the United States.
3. We are grateful to Patricia Graham for bringing this sketch by Tessai to our attention. For additional discussion see Patricia J. Graham: ““Karamono for sencha: Transformations in the taste for Chinese art,” chapter 5 in Morgan Pitelka, ed., Japanese Tea Culture: Art, history, and practice, London, 2003. p. 119.
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Fig. 1. Yang Wencong: “Landscape after Shen Zhou,” 1643, after Harada Kinjiro, comp.: Shina Meiga Hokan (Tokyo: Otsuka Kogeisha, 1936), pl. 696.
Fig. 2. Tomioka Tessai: “Baiitsu’s Study,” after Tessai Art Museum: Tessai to sencha no sekai (Takarazuka: Tessai Bijutsukan, 1991), plate 40, number 16.
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