Suzuki Kiitsu

Asagao screen pair

Suzuki Kiitsu ( Japanese 鈴木 其一 , real first name Motonaga ( 元 長 ); born 1796 in Edo (today: Tokyo ); died October 16, 1858 there ) was a painter and the last important representative of the Rimpa school .

life and work

Suzuki comes from a family of dyers from the Ōmi province who developed the dye Murasaki (a kind of purple) from the Murasaki plant ( Lithospermum erythrorhizon ). He lived in the Sakai household in Himeji and learned painting under Sakai Hōitsu . E was later adopted by Suzuki Reitan ( 鈴木 蠣 潭 ; 1792-1817), a samurai from the Sakai clan. Reitan held a higher position with the Sakai that Kiitsu was able to take over from him when he died unexpectedly early.

Kiitsu continued the style of Hōitsu, the style of the Rimpa school, which goes back to Ogata Kōrin , where he painted more naturalistic. He died at the age of 62 and was buried in Shōjō-ji Temple, a temple that was then in Asakusa , but which was later relocated to the Nakano district . His best-known works include the pair of adjustable screens “Morning Winds” ( 朝 顔 図 屏風 , Asagao-zu byōbu ) and the pair of adjustable screens “Summer and Autumn on the Flowing Water” ( 夏秋 渓 流 屏風 , Kashū keiryū-to byōbu ).

Suzuki carried the other stage names Kaikai ( 噲 々 ), Hitsuan ( 必 庵 ), Isandō ( 為 三 堂 ) and Seisei ( 青 々 ).

photos

• 

  Summer-autumn screen pair, in the Nezu Museum

• 

  Takasago ( Nō )

literature

• Kobayashi Tadashi (Ed.): Rimpa Painting. Volume II. Shikosha, 1994. ISBN 4-87940-509-4
• Kobayashi Tadashi (Ed.): Rimpa Painting. Volume I and II. Shikosha, 1994. ISBN 4-87940-510-8
• Tazawa, Yutaka: Suzuki Kiitsu . In: Biographical Dictionary of Japanese Art. Kodansha International, 1981. ISBN 0-87011-488-3 .

Remarks

1. ↑ The Nō play Takasago ( 高 砂 ) is about an old couple who sweeps the needles under a jaw, the jaw, which can then be seen as a background image on every Nō stage.

Individual evidence

1. ^ In the New York Metropolitan Museum of Art .
2. ↑ In the Metropolitan Museum .

Web links

Commons : Suzuki Kiitsu  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files

• Exhibition 2016 in the Suntory Art Museum

Japanese name: As is common in Japan, the family name comes before the first name in this article . Thus Suzuki is the family name, Kiitsu the first name.