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Lot Essay
With understated simplicity, the painting draws us into the eddies of a swiftly moving stream teeming with enormous carp and dainty sweetfish (ayu), the latter a seasonal delicacy in Kyoto, where Okyo reigned as the leading master of his generation. The composition is anchored by broad strokes of deep black ink wash—a boulder at the far right, and the embankment at the left. The supple curves of the bodies of the carp echo the current of the stream. At the right, dainty pinks (nadeshiko) signal the onset of autumn. Okyo treats the subject with a new naturalism characteristic of the late eighteenth century.
Okyo’s work was in great demand even during his own lifetime, and he is said to have had nearly a thousand pupils. His virtuoso technique in rendering of the natural world combined with sensitivity to the decorative possibilities of the composition make his paintings irresistible. His paintings of carp were especially influential in shaping the work of subsequent generations of Kyoto painters.
For a pair of hanging scrolls by Okyo depicting Sweetfish in Summer and Autumn in the Burke Collection, see Miyeko Murase, Bridge of Dreams: The Mary Griggs Burke Collection of Japanese Art (New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2000), cat. no. 115. A pair of screens of Cranes by Okyo, dated seventh month of 1774, was sold at Christie’s New York, sale 1876, September 18, 2007.
Okyo’s work was in great demand even during his own lifetime, and he is said to have had nearly a thousand pupils. His virtuoso technique in rendering of the natural world combined with sensitivity to the decorative possibilities of the composition make his paintings irresistible. His paintings of carp were especially influential in shaping the work of subsequent generations of Kyoto painters.
For a pair of hanging scrolls by Okyo depicting Sweetfish in Summer and Autumn in the Burke Collection, see Miyeko Murase, Bridge of Dreams: The Mary Griggs Burke Collection of Japanese Art (New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2000), cat. no. 115. A pair of screens of Cranes by Okyo, dated seventh month of 1774, was sold at Christie’s New York, sale 1876, September 18, 2007.