Shiba Kokan (1747-1818)

Three Europeans on horseback in landscape, ca. 1789-1801

细节

Shiba Kokan (1747-1818)
Three Europeans on horseback in landscape, ca. 1789-1801
Signed in Roman letters Si Kookan
Hanging scroll; oil on silk
31 1/8 x 15in. (79 x 38cm.)

来源

The Manno Art Museum, Osaka

展览

Hamaya Department Store, Nagasaki, "Nikuhitsu ukiyoe meisaku ten" (Exhibition of masterpieces of ukiyo-e paintings), 1962.10.11-19

The Museum of Modern Art, Kamakura, "Shiba Kokan to sono jidai" (Shiba Kokan and his period), 1965.1.31-3.7

PUBLISHED:
Ukiyoe nikuhitsu meisakuten (Exhibition of masterpieces of ukiyo-e paintings) (Tokyo: Kogeisha, 1962), pl. 58.

The Museum of Modern Art, Kamakura, ed., Shiba Kokan to sono jidai (Shiba Kokan and his period) (Kanagawa: Museum of Modern Art, Kamakura, 1965), no. 5.

Naruse Fujio, Shiba Kokan-Shogai to gagyo-sakuhin hen (Shiba Kokan -Life and works: Works volume) (Tokyo: Yasaka shobo, 1995), pl. 122.

Kobayashi Tadashi, ed., Manno bijutsukan (The Manno Art Museum), vol. 7 of Nikuhitsu ukiyoe taikan/Ukiyo-e paintings in Japanese Collections (Tokyo: Kodansha, 1996), no. 35.

拍品专文

Kokan studied the academic style of Kano-school painting, then Nagasaki style under So Shiseki (1712-1786) in Edo. He also studied ukiyo-e painting and printmaking under Suzuki Harunobu (1725-1770). He produced spurious Harunobu prints, and used the name of Harushige for his own prints. During the An'ei era (1772-81), he changed his interest to Westen-style prints and paintings influenced by Hiraga Gennai (1726-1779) and Odano Naotake (1749-1780). In 1783, he became the first Japanese copperplate engraver with View of Mimeguri, and took up oil painting. In 1788, he went to Nagasaki to learn the techniques of Western oil painting. During the Kansei era (1789-1801), his Western-style paintings incorporated motifs from Japanese landscapes and scenes from Western books. Kokan introduced European natural science, including astronomy and geography to Japan.

According to Naruse Fujio, the rare oil painting shown here might have been painted in 1789 (Kansei 1). Scholars date most of Kokan's Western figure paintings in oil with the signature in red ink to 1789.

For a copperplate engraving by Kokan, see lot 6.