Carp and Cherry Blossom Petals in a Stream

Five cherry petals dot the surface of a small stream, eyed by a carp that slowly turns, as if about to gulp them down. A steady breeze buffets the branches of a willow and ripples the water’s surface. Carp have been a popular subject in Japanese paintings since medieval times, but depicting them swimming under water in a realistic manner derives from the influence of the Nagasaki school, which became popular in Kyoto and Osaka during the mid-Edo period.

Jagyoku was born and trained in Osaka under both Tachibana Morikuni (1679–1748) and the Ōbaku monk-painter Kakutei (1722–1786), from whom he acquired a mastery of the Shen Nanpin style of bird-and-flower painting. Including this work, only eight paintings by Jagyoku are known to survive. We can assume the artist specialized in painting carp based on his nickname, Koi Okina (Old Carp Man). Also, it is said that a painting by Jagyoku was the inspiration for the story “Carp in a Dream” (“Muō no rigyo”) in Ueda Akinari’s celebrated collection of ghost stories, Tales of Moonlight and Rain (Ugetsu monogatari).