Watanabe Shiko

Watanabe Shikō ( Japanese 渡 辺 始興 , actually Watanabe Kyūma / Motome (渡 辺 求 馬), other artist names : Shōken (松 軒), Soshin (素 信); born 1683 in Kyoto ; died September 5, 1755 ) was a Japanese painter the Rimpa direction during the middle Edo period .

life and work

Watanabe Shikō came from Kyoto. The first reliable reference to him comes from the Konoe family's diary , which is entitled "Zōji niki". There is an entry about him on the 9th day of the 10th month of the year 1708. From this it can be concluded that Watanabe was in the service of Konoe Iehiro (1667–1739). Another work called "槐 記" (Kaiki), which comes from a samurai doctor named Yamashina Dōan, deals with the activities of Iehiro and mentions Watanabe four times.

It is known that Watanabe was in imperial service in 1717. In 1735 he completed a copy of the scrolls with the title "春日 権 現 験 記" (Kasuga gongen-ki), which is now kept in the Yōmei Bunko in Kyoto. This was followed by pictures, which were mostly large-format and in which he developed his own style.

First Watanabe had studied the style of the Kanō school and then that of Ogata Kōrin , so that one can assign his works to one or the other style. Typical of the reference to the Kanō school are its screens and wall decorations (障 壁画, Shōheki-ga) for the kombu-in (興 福 院) in Nara. His paintings on the sliding doors in Daikaku-ji in Kyoto show the Ogata style. His very personal style can be seen, for example, in the pair of parasols "吉野 山 図" (Yoshinoyama zu, Yoshinoyama mountains).

photos

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  Sliding doors

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  Plum trees, left

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  Plum trees, right

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  Yoshinoyama screen

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  Screen with flowers

1. ↑ Section from the right control screen.
2. ↑ Owned by the Freer Gallery of Art .

literature

• Tazawa, Yutaka: Watanabe Shikō . In: Biographical Dictionary of Japanese Art. Kodansha International, 1981. ISBN 0-87011-488-3 .
• Laurance P. Roberts: Shikō . In: A Dictionary of Japanese Artists. Weatherhill, 1976. ISBN 0-8348-0113-2 .

Web links

Commons : Watanabe Shiko  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

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