Fowls with Pines and Plum Blossoms 松梅群鶏図屏風しょうばいぐんけいずびょうぶ

Description

This pair of folding screens depicts symmetrical pairs of roosters and hens facing front, back, and other directions in an appealing way. The screens also incorporate auspicious motifs such as pines and plum trees.

The animals are skillfully rendered in varied gradations of ink. The feathers of the roosters’ tail and pine needles are depicted with vigorous dynamism, while the fowls’ plumage appears in more subtle gradations of ink. If you look closely at the stone lantern on the right folding screen, you can see that it is composed of countless points of varying sizes. Delicate variation in the gradation of ink is used to express the three-dimensionality and texture of the stone. Although the dominant color is black ink, the plum blossoms, roosters’ crests and plumage are colored in yellow, red and white, which is a subtle but effective accenting technique.

The artist, Itō Jakuchū, was a painter active in Kyoto during the 18th century. Jakuchū valued what he could see with his eyes and often painted familiar subjects such as flowers and birds. Roosters were his specialty. Jakuchū was known as the “painter of roosters” and kept roosters in his own garden, where he observed and painted them. The roosters painted on these folding screens may be the ones kept by Jakuchū.