DOI Heft:
No. 303 (June 1918)
DOI Artikel:Studio-talk
DOI Seite / Zitierlink: https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.21265#0038
Studio- Talk
TOKYO.—Of numerous art sales that
have recently taken place at the Tokyo
Fine Art Club none was so important
as the one in which the family
treasures of Marquis Satake, an old feudal lord,
were put up for sale. It was the greatest since
the record-breaking Akaboshi sale, and com-
prised three hundred items, consisting of paint-
ings, calligraphs, lacquer ware, cha-no-yu uten-
sils, and armour. The sale realized the enor-
mous sum of 1,111,166 yen in spite of the fact
that the public was more or less in a depressed
mood, as the sale took place shortly after the
great storm and tidal waves which devastated
Tokyo and its vicinity.
The sale included two excellent examples of
work by Sesshyu, the famous Japanese priest-
artist who went to China in search of a teacher
and returned greatly inspired by the grandeur
and sublimity of the continental mountains and
lakes. One was a portrait of Daruma, the
founder of the Zen sect of Buddhism, in the
form of a kakemono (hanging picture), and the
other was a landscape on a pair of screens. The
Daruma (p. 34), sold for 30,300 yen, was drawn
by Sesshyu at the ripe age of eighty-two, and
shows remarkable strength and vigour of ex-
pression. In this simple drawing he has suc-
ceeded in portraying the enlightened mind,
revealing life, with its spiritual spark, through
the calm repose of the flesh. The landscape (a
pair of six panelled screens), sold for 46,000 yen,
is free from his usual overemphasized lines,
and though lacking somewhat his usual vigour
of expression, it teems with his reverence for
Nature, suggesting its infinite grandeur in the
half-finished contour of the mountains in a
marvellously well-balanced composition.
The highest price paid at the sale was for
Sanju Rokkasen (Portraits of Thirty-six Poets)
in two rolls. These portraits, except two
painted by Tannyu to replace lost originals,
were painted by Fujiwara Nobuzane, a noted
poet and painter of the thirteenth century,
and the poems were written by Ryokyo. The
set realized 353,000 yen (about £35,000), the
biggest amount ever paid at these sales. Nobu-
zane here displays his marvellous ability in
TOKYO.—Of numerous art sales that
have recently taken place at the Tokyo
Fine Art Club none was so important
as the one in which the family
treasures of Marquis Satake, an old feudal lord,
were put up for sale. It was the greatest since
the record-breaking Akaboshi sale, and com-
prised three hundred items, consisting of paint-
ings, calligraphs, lacquer ware, cha-no-yu uten-
sils, and armour. The sale realized the enor-
mous sum of 1,111,166 yen in spite of the fact
that the public was more or less in a depressed
mood, as the sale took place shortly after the
great storm and tidal waves which devastated
Tokyo and its vicinity.
The sale included two excellent examples of
work by Sesshyu, the famous Japanese priest-
artist who went to China in search of a teacher
and returned greatly inspired by the grandeur
and sublimity of the continental mountains and
lakes. One was a portrait of Daruma, the
founder of the Zen sect of Buddhism, in the
form of a kakemono (hanging picture), and the
other was a landscape on a pair of screens. The
Daruma (p. 34), sold for 30,300 yen, was drawn
by Sesshyu at the ripe age of eighty-two, and
shows remarkable strength and vigour of ex-
pression. In this simple drawing he has suc-
ceeded in portraying the enlightened mind,
revealing life, with its spiritual spark, through
the calm repose of the flesh. The landscape (a
pair of six panelled screens), sold for 46,000 yen,
is free from his usual overemphasized lines,
and though lacking somewhat his usual vigour
of expression, it teems with his reverence for
Nature, suggesting its infinite grandeur in the
half-finished contour of the mountains in a
marvellously well-balanced composition.
The highest price paid at the sale was for
Sanju Rokkasen (Portraits of Thirty-six Poets)
in two rolls. These portraits, except two
painted by Tannyu to replace lost originals,
were painted by Fujiwara Nobuzane, a noted
poet and painter of the thirteenth century,
and the poems were written by Ryokyo. The
set realized 353,000 yen (about £35,000), the
biggest amount ever paid at these sales. Nobu-
zane here displays his marvellous ability in