Winter Landscape

Not a single person populates this vast winter landscape; the only hint of human habitation is suggested by what appears to be a mountain retreat situated about halfway up the composition. In the foreground is a magnificent tangle of trees and plants of various species—meticulously and compulsively brushed in a tour de force of painterly precision and patience. The season is winter, and the leafless branches are carefully outlined in a ying and yang of dark ink and pale gray outlines surrounding areas in reserve. To add to the complexity of the composition, a waterfall forms a backdrop to accentuate the gnarled trunk of an aged tree. As the eye follows the recession of the composition into the background, massive rock outcrops are given three-dimensionality by the use of various texture strokes and ink dots.

This imaginary Chinese-style landscape was created by Hayashi Hyakuhi, a samurai painter who spent most of his life in the Chōshū domain (surrounding the modern city of Hagi), where he grew up and was inculcated with study of the Chinese classics and poetry. He first studied painting, calligraphy and seal carving under Yano Katsuzan 矢野括山 (1780–1845）and then under Tanomura Chikuden , the great Nanga master of the era, whose influence is revealed in this work of 1840, Not only was Hyakuhi a skilled painter, he excelled in Chinese poetry, calligraphy and seal carving, while also becoming a scholar of military strategy. Note that the artist often used a seal reading Nyoze 如是, a Buddhist term, and short for jū nyoze 十如是 (the ten thusnesses) of the Tendai sect. In the signature on this work he evocatively refers to his painting studio as the Sansui Nyoze Shooku 山水如是書屋, or the Library of the Thusnesses of Landscape.

In the signature, the artist also refers to himself as as Hōgai Shiba 方外司馬, employing a Chinese expression that originated in A New Account of the Tales of the World (Shishuo Xinyu 世說新語, compiled in the fifth century) referring to someone who received a civil service appointment, but who does not comply with all the regulations and restraints required as a condition of his employment. In this context it suggests the outlook of a Literati painter who does not want to conform to the strictures of the samurai society into which he was born. One of the artist’s seal impressed on the left of the painting repeats this name.