Old Pine

The trunk of an old pine tree bends across the lower part of the painting, its contorted branches and pine boughs filling the frame with the spiky brushwork characteristic of Jakuchū’s mature painting style. The background is filled with a light ink wash, leaving fine white unpainted areas around the branches and pine needles. The luminous outlining, in combination with the unstained knots and front edge of the tree trunk, creates a sense of seeing the tree at night bathed in full moonlight.

The painting is signed “Beito’ō hachijūsan-sai ga” (Painted by Beito’ō, aged 83). The “Beito’ō” signature indicates that the work was painted in the final phase of Jakuchū’s long career, when he kept a painting studio in front of the Sekihōji Temple, south of Kyoto. There he sold quickly executed ink paintings to support himself after the disastrous Kyoto fire of 1788 left him in financial ruin. Because he would exchange a quickly executed painting for a to (about four gallons) of rice, he began to call himself Beito’ō (Old Rice-Measure Man).