Nanga
Nankô (Masanari Kusuki)Signed: Taiotsu Rôjin heidai
Seals: Taiitsu Rôjin sanzetsu, Hakusetsu
Technique: sumi on paper 127.3 x 32.7
Mounting: raw brown silk 191 x 45.3
Box: inscribed
Condition: very good
國事托吾身可捐
此公難比蜀臣然
君王復辟違忠諫
斜谷何如出湊川
The fate of the country is in my hands and it could go wrong,
My situation is trickier than that of the chancellor of Shu,
My lord wants to return to power and is turning a blind eye to sincere advice,
How did it go in Liaogu compared to getting away from the Minato River?
At the battle at the Minato River in 1336 in which Emperor Go-Daigo's forces fought a hopeless battle with the Ashikaga clan general Kusunoki Masashige (1294-1336) loyal to the emperor died.
Murase Taiitsu, a highly individual and unconventional bunjin artist can be regarded as the Confucianist literati equivalent of the Zenga master Sengai Gibon (1750-1837) and perhaps the greatest individualist among the early Meiji painters.
Taiitsu was born in Gifu Prefecture. He was the second son in a large, wealthy and educated farmers family.
In 1821 he went to Nagoya to study with doctor Murase Rissai (1792-1851), a brother of Murase Tôjô (1791-1852), once a student of Shinozaki Shôchiku (1781-1851) and of Rai San'yô (1780-1832). Taiitsu went to Kyoto to stay with San'yô, likely introduced by Tôjô. After San'yô's death in 1832 he returned to Nagoya to teach. When in 1840 the Keidôkan School was established by Naruse Seiju, a lord of the Inuyama clan, Tôjô was appointed head and in 1842 he invited Taiotsu to become a teacher there.
When the feudal educational system was abandoned at the beginning of the Meiji period he lost his position as a Confucian teacher. Being unemployed, living far from Kyoto and Tokyo, Taiitsu was free to behave as he pleased and to paint as he wished, he received little attention from anybody but his small circle of pupils and friends.
Reference:
Addiss 1979
Oranda Jin 2015
Roberts p. 168
Araki p. 343
Price: EUR 900 / USD 900
