YUKIO LIPPIT Harvard University

Urakami Gyokud o¯: An Intoxicology of Japanese Literati

or some time now it has been difficult to conditions and commercial nature of literati make sweeping statements about the nature cultural transactions. 3 These conditions F and history of literati painting in East Asia. were frequently masked by the rhetoric of Scholarly inquiry of the past several decades lofty amateurism, the conceit that the literati has balkanized what was once comfortably painter painted only for his or her own enjoy - viewed as a self-contained tradition of paint - ment or that of friends. Long accepted at ing by scholar-amateurs with shared prin - face value, this rhetoric was especially well ciples. According to the once-prevailing view, received in the English-language sphere dur - literati painting originated among Chinese ing the early postwar period, when the Cold scholar-officials of the eleventh century and War provided a framework within which was centered on the ideals of friendship, the literati ideal of autonomous artistic pro - classical learning, and naturalness of expres - duction was overvalorized. 4 Greater sensi - sion, pictorially expressed through a cir - tivity to the gaps between this posture and cumscribed menu of allegorical subjects and the circumstances of livelihood and exchange an array of unpolished brush effects, the that underpinned it has enabled a vastly corollary of which was an aversion to so- more nuanced understanding of literati sub - called courtly or professional modes of pic - jectivity and sociality. 5 Moreover, the mode torial representation. Now this putative of painting with which this layered subjec - tradition tends to be understood as a con - tivity is associated can now be more precisely stellation of individual and local practices understood as merely one of several spheres that were only loosely related and all sig - —along with poetry, calligraphy, and the nificantly marked by differing historical and authorship of specific categories of texts—in regional contingencies. 1 Compared to a gen - which this particular form of selfhood was eration ago, there is now a much greater performed and maintained. 6 Such insights awareness of the constructedness of the also go a long way toward illuminating literati canon, with regard to not only the the complex economies of obligation and “Southern School” genealogy outlined by exchange within which literati artifacts the influential scholar-official and aestheti - acquired meaning and value. cian Dong Qichang ( 1555 –1636 ), but also This essay attempts to build on this new 1. Urakami Gyokud o¯, the pan-Asian literati tradition formulated in awareness in the study of literati painting by Eastern Clouds, Sifted Snow the s and s by Chinese and - further exploring the inner mechanics of (To¯un shisetsu zu ), c. 1811 – 1910 1920 2 1812 , vertical hanging scroll, ese painter-intellectuals. the newly articulated performative aspect ink and light colors on paper Considerable effort has also been devoted of literati cultural production through an Kawabata Foundation, Kanagawa Prefecture to local excavations of the socioeconomic examination of the of the Japanese

167 artist Urakami Gyoku do¯(1745 –1820 ). 7 More shimmering, kinetically charged represen - famous in his own time as a musician and tations (fig. 2). Gyoku do¯ ’s oeuvre departs so poet, Gyoku do¯ was rediscovered early in the dramatically from anything else in the literati twentieth century for his small corpus of canon that this alterity alone would suffice landscape paintings, remarkable in their to render him deserving of sustained critical sketchy and brooding appeal (fig. 1). Exe - examination. In this instance, however, it is cuted on paper in mostly monochrome ink, Gyoku do¯ ’s reputation as the drunken painter these paintings are typically accompanied par excellence that makes him such an in- by poetic inscriptions and signatures in triguing case study in literati pictorialism. Gyokud o¯’s inimitable seal-script calligraphy. The relationship of Gyoku do¯’s art to alco - Most are landscapes conjured up through hol has until now been assumed rather than an accu mulation of rapid, horizontal, and assessed. But a proper assessment is crucial, abbreviated brushstrokes combined with if only because the trope of the drunken rhythmically peppered dabs that result in artist had a long history in East Asian cul -

2. Urakami Gyokud o¯, Hazy Mist Captured amid Mountains (Ro¯en jakuji zu ), c. 1815 , vertical hanging scroll, ink on paper Idemitsu Art Museum,

168 lippit tural production; Gyoku do¯’s instantiation symbiosis of word and image. With regard of it needs at least to be brought into con - to Gyokud o¯, these insights are all the more sideration as the primary context for his trenchant for the way in which facture reception, both in his own time and later on, and rhetoric were so thoroughly imbri- as a scholar-amateur unfettered by conven - cated. Thus a sober examination of his self- tion. If literati cultural production was meant representation facilitates a heightened sen - in large part to authenticate the fidelity of its sitivity not only to his brush dynamics but creators and recipients to the ideals cherished also, more generally, to patterns of personi - by the imagined community to which they fication in literati visual representation as a claimed membership—erudition, autonomy, whole. friendship, and amateurism—the converse was also true: the cultural authenticity of a Such an inquiry is best prefaced by a con - literati artifact had to be guaranteed by the sideration of the rules of amateur painterly social reputations of its creator and owner. expression on which Gyokud o¯’s painting was Oftentimes their good standing was attested generally premised. It was axiomatic that a to by the work’s textual enclosures, includ - literati painter cultivate the appearance of ing its title, occasional and signatorial inscrip - amateurishness in his or her work in order to tion, and, most important, its colophons. distinguish it from what the Chinese scholar- In the realm of painting, however, inscrip - official and literati aesthetic theorist Dong tive accoutrements could only do so much. Qichang ( 1555 –1636 ) called “the demon The general principles of literati identity world” of professional painting. 8 Doing so always had to be somehow manifest in the was, however, a much trickier proposition pictorial representation itself. The role of than might be supposed, for there was never literatus was a mode of being that was con - any clear consensus as to what an authenti - tinuously performed through, among other cally amateur painting looked like, or how a things, specific pictorial strategies and brush lack of professional skill should be commu - effects. Although textual enclosures could nicated in the ink-painting medium. Indeed, provide more specific information concern - in the history of literati painting, a wide ing the circumstances of exchange and sit - range of painterly effects were coded as non - uate the work more precisely in accordance professional over the centuries. Most painters with any local consensus governing the pro - who assumed the ideals of the scholar- tocols of scholar-official production, the official class in fact usually had some facil - morphology of a painted object was ulti - ity with the painter’s brush and developed mately what rendered it legible as an artifact sophisticated techniques of de-skilling in of literati aspirations. order to cultivate an amateurity of expression. A key question that governs this inquiry Some turned to the ancients for models of is in what balance the rules of literati mark a primitive pictorial appearance; others making operated alongside the narrative transposed the brush habits of calligraphic frames that enabled its acceptance as some - handwriting to the realm of painting; and how authentic. Gyoku do¯ ’s case is a reminder still others defined their amateurism in con - that these frames could contribute to the sistently negative terms simply as non- overall semantic agenda of a literati painting professional painting, consisting primarily of by conveying a complementary rhetorical absences: the absence of expensive materials structure emphasizing certain dispositions— such as silk or mineral pigments, of elaborate including drunkenness, playfulness, reclu - compositions or minute details, and of other- sion, unwillingness, or even madness—to wise prettifying gestures. It helped that there facilitate the recognition of the work as a emerged a wide-ranging menu of allegorical properly literati representation. Although subjects, including bamboo, orchids, and with - such dispositions are not reflected in all ered trees, all part of an iconography of literati literati paintings, or perhaps even in the virtue, that lent itself well to the demon - majority, where they do appear they offer stration of purposeful undercrafting. insight into the ways a communicative As mentioned above, the adoption of agenda could be crafted through the careful semifictitious personas also enhanced the

lippit 169 reception of a painting as a reflection of the ining his unique brush effects and intoxicated unadorned self. But eventually the most personations. common method by which to achieve the appearance of the dilettante who painted Gyokud o¯ was a samurai official from the only for friends was to mimic the approaches Kamogata Ikeda domain of Bizen Province, of earlier exemplars of the genre. Ironically, located in what is now Okayama Prefec - over time those qualities most prized in ture in the western part of Japan’s main literati discourse, such as clumsiness, awk - island. He was most famous during his own wardness, and blandness, came to be most lifetime as a practitioner and instructor of readily captured through the attributes of the qin, or seven-stringed Chinese zither, an proficiency, facility, and dexterity. The wide - instrument with a small but committed fol - spread dissemination and extreme conven - lowing among intellectuals of the tionalization of literati methods over the (1615 –1868 ). After the age of forty-nine, centuries thus gave rise to an orthodoxy of however, when he requested and received a expression and a chronic condition of pro - release from his administrative duties and fessional amateurism. domainal affiliation, Gyokud o¯ pursued a In by the seventeenth century, the mostly itinerant lifestyle, traveling up and pretence of amateurism in the literati tra - down the archipelago with his two sons, dition was nearly defunct. As Richard Vino - teaching music, composing poetry, and frat - grad has written, “What [remained] of the ernizing with a countrywide network of original impulse [was] largely the association sinophile friends and patrons. Even after with educated artists and the embellish - settling down in for the last decade of ment of paintings with texts.” 9 This was his life, Gyoku do¯ continued to engage literati the state in which literati painting was first peers and secured a singular, if minor, pres - practiced as a significant mode of pictorial ence in the world of letters. It was a by- representation in Korea in the seventeenth product of these pursuits, a small corpus of century and Japan in the eighteenth cen - landscape paintings dating almost entirely tury. In all three countries, painting in the to his late years, that ensured Gyoku do¯’s scholar-amateur mode was carried out under posthumous fame. Admiration of these conditions that might be understood as works was initially limited to a small group highly inauthentic, even fraudulent, with of cognoscenti, including fellow literati such regard to its initial rhetorical axioms. But it as Tanomura Chikuden ( 1777 –1835 ). During is not as if all painters employing this idiom Gyoku do¯ ’s lifetime, his precocious son were unaware of their bad faith. Indeed, Shunkin ( 1779 –1846 ) was in fact more those painters for whom the practice of a rei - widely recognized as a painter than his fied mode of literati painting was a source of father. 11 And because Gyoku do¯ did not take anxiety have almost without exception on painting students, he lacked an artistic earned a place in the modern art historical lineage that could carry his legacy into the canon. In China, there emerged among the modern era, unlike other literati painters more ambitious of artists a variety of visual such as Ikeno Taiga ( 1723 –1776 ) and Tani and rhetorical approaches for overcoming Bunch o¯ ( 1761 –1840 ). the literati dilemma that took as their point Instead, Gyoku do¯ was rediscovered in the of departure this conventionalized pictorial twentieth century primarily as a painter idiom. Some of the most startling new forms rather than a litterateur or musician. The of pictorial expression to emerge during this contours of this reception were shaped by period can be understood under the rubric of painters such as Tomioka Tessai ( 1836 –1924 ), a quixotic search for an authentically ama - an early enthusiast who so admired Gyoku do¯ teur form of literati pictorial expression, as that he is known to have repeatedly and rit - reflected in the Chinese painter Shitao ually transcribed a short autobiographical (1642 –1707 ) and his concept of the One- text by his predecessor titled Mizukara stroke ( yihua ). 10 It is within this trajectory Gyokud o¯ no kabe ni shirusu (Gyoku do¯’s of the pursuit of skill-lessness that Gyoku do¯ wall writing). 12 By the 1920 s, when the literati can most profitably be situated when exam - painting tradition was receiving renewed

170 lippit attention, many Japanese painters embraced a relentless affinity for alcohol. The basic Gyoku do¯ as an important early example of facts of his life and few surviving accounts an East Asian painter who worked through of his character do not contradict this profile. the traditional literati idiom to achieve a The same is true of the considerable amount strikingly modern pictorial expression. The of new material about Gyokud o¯ brought artists Hashimoto Kansetsu ( 1883 –1944 ) and to light after World War II, this time by Yano Ky o¯ son ( 1890 –1965 ) inaugurated the professional scholars and curators. 17 The scholarly study of Gyoku do¯ by authoring emphasis in the postwar literature on the the first book-length monographs on his introduction of new works and biographical painting, both published in 1926 .13 information, however, has resulted more in the Practitioners were not the only ones - accumulation of entries on his timeline than dering the production of knowledge about in a meaningful alteration of the architecture Gyoku do¯ : a market for his paintings quickly of his identity, already firmly established by emerged, attracting prominent Japanese commentators in the 1920 s and 1930 s. industrialist collectors of the prewar period. This is not to say, however, that raw mate - Ohara Magosabur o¯(1880 –1943 ), who founded rial is lacking for the presentation of a less Japan’s earliest museum of Western art in romanticized assessment of Gyokud o¯ ’s cul - 1930 , was so enamored of the painter that he tural production and historical profile. In sponsored the publication of Gyoku do¯ ’s first this regard, recent explorations of Gyoku do¯ ’s catalogue raisonné in 1939 .14 As the cata - social networks and musical practice provide logue reveals, however, by this time the the most significant vectors of future inquiry. painter’s reputation as an authentic Japanese Sugimoto Yoshihisa has illuminated the literatus and modernist avant la lettre was complexity of the relationships Gyoku do¯ so well entrenched that a small cottage formed as a young domainal official during industry of Gyoku do¯ forgeries striving for a his frequent stays in Edo during the 1770 s “Gyokud o¯ effect” had emerged, mediating and 80 s, as well as their effect on his intel - and compromising the ever-expanding aware - lectual formation. 18 His encounter and last - ness of his work (a problem that continues ing friendship with the Confucian scholar to plague his commentators today). Gyoku do¯’s Tamada Moku o¯(1697 –1785 ) and his circle in reputation was even internationalized in 1774 , for example, drew Gyoku do¯ to a vig - the prewar era through the efforts of the orously practical form of neo-Confucian phi - German architect Bruno Taut ( 1880 –1938 ), losophy embraced by mercantile intellectuals an enthusiast of Japanese artistic traditions of the eighteenth century. 19 At the same who was already familiar through his des - time, Gyokud o¯ developed his practice of ignation of the Katsura Villa as an icon of Chinese-style poetry through friendships functionalist architecture. Taut championed with M o¯ri Koky u¯(1730 –1786 ) and other Gyoku do¯ as yet another product of pre - second-generation disciples of the philo- modern Japanese culture that anticipated a logically oriented Confucianist Ogy u¯ Sorai modernist movement, in this case impres - (1666 –1729 ). 20 Versifying peers also included sionism. 15 The high regard for Gyokud o¯ scholars associated with the Nobeoka continued after the war, when he served as domain in Hy u¯ga Province (present-day inspiration for writers such as Yoshikawa Miyazaki Prefecture in Ky u¯ sh u¯), whose lord (1892 –1962 ) and Kawabata Yasunari ( 1899 – Nait o¯ Seiy o¯ ( 1737 –1781 ) studied the qin with 1972 ), who modeled protagonists after him Gyoku do¯ in Edo. 21 These overlapping but and infused their stories with what they semi-discrete groups provided a social matrix imagined to be his worldview. 16 within which the samurai-official gained The image of Gyoku do¯ shared by the access to national networks of meaning and artists and collectors responsible for his sinophile cultural practice. The rich hori - twentieth-century reception was of an indi - zontal associations formed in Edo would vidualist and idealist who abandoned the also provide Gyokud o¯ with his first exposure tedium of bureaucracy to lead a life devoted to intellectual movements that later infused to friends, travel, poetry, music, and paint - his own musical and painterly practice, such ing, the pursuit of which was lubricated by as Wang Yangming philosophy ( O¯ yo¯ mei in

lippit 171 Japanese) and the National Learning (Koku - tion and ideological commitments provides gaku) movement. 22 a more precise and animated interpretative Of equal interest and closely related to framework for his ink paintings and painterly these scholarly networks are Gyoku do¯ ’s dispositions. activities in Sino-Japanese musicology. 23 He studied the qin with the Edo scholar Taki Here, however, it is at an operational regis - Rankei ( 1732 –1801 ). Because Rankei was an ter that Gyokud o¯ ’s artistic persona will be official physician to the shogunate, Gyoku do¯ examined, more specifically his drunken may also have studied Chinese medicine comportment. With regard to most of his cul - with him and may have earned income him - tural production, especially his poetry and self as a physician and herbalist. 24 Although painting, Gyokud o¯ ’s indulgence in wine is Gyokud o¯ ’s interests in Chinese pharmacol - not only a continuously sounded theme but ogy demonstrate that medical and musical the announced precondition of representa - knowledge were to some extent intertwined tion. The retired samurai-official expressed during the Edo period, it was his interest in his allegiance to states of inebriation directly reviving a tradition of early Japanese court on the surfaces of his paintings, not only in song known as saibara that makes his musi - seals that read Suisen (Drunken Immortal) cianship historically significant. 25 Remark - and Suiky o¯ (Drunkenville) but also in signa- ably, his study of ancient saibara involved torial inscriptions such as Gyokud o¯ (kin shi ) their transcription into the notational system suisaku (drunkenly painted by Gyoku do¯). 28 and scale structure employed for the qin, Much of his poetry is also suffused with a leading to a novel, disjunctive musical expres - drowsy stupor, at times rapturous and at sion that was not without its critics. 26 times melancholic, induced by the emptying Gyokud o¯ ’s study of court music of the of wine cups. A poem from the Sank o¯ (Moun - ( 794 –1185 ) was closely related tain travels) section of his first poetry anthol - to his association with leading members of ogy, Gyokud o¯ kinshi sh u¯ (Collection of the National Learning movement, which Gyokud o¯ the qin player, 1794 ), is one among grew out of scholarship and revived many examples that could be cited: 29 interest in so-called nativist cultural tradi - Tipsy among the trees and flowers, I fell asleep tions while asserting the political centrality by a pond; of the imperial court. It has also been argued, Amid the fragrant grasses, a golden butterfly however, that his interest in saibara reflected fluttered. the strong influence of Ogy u¯ Sorai’s philo - Now, waking up sober at dawn, where is the logical approach to classical texts, applied to springtime? music. According to this thesis, Gyoku do¯ ’s Its fragrance remains in the grasses caught in study of long-extinct indigenous musical the teeth of my clogs. 30 traditions reflected his desire to reconstruct Other poems were less indirect: the aural environment of wise rulers in early Japan, so that rulers in the present could At dawn I drink three or four cups of sake, better follow their example. Gyokud o¯ ’s At dusk I chew on a piece of meat. seventeen-year period of itinerancy between Cool wind comes to fan my face, his retirement from domainal responsibili - The flavor of the wine is rich and mellow. 31 ties and settlement in Kyoto ( 1794 –1811 ), Gyokud o¯ ’s fondness for wine was men - moreover, has been attributed to his single- tioned in virtually every surviving con- minded pursuit of musical study and revival, temporary account of him. Chikuden, for which involved visits to numerous shrines example, featured Gyokud o¯ ’s “intoxicated 27 around the archipelago. brush” ( suiyo no fude ) in his colophon to Whatever the merits of this argument, in Enkach o¯ (Album of fog and mist, 1811 ), and its very overdetermination, the intellectual provided the following account of his older genealogy of Gyokud o¯ ’s nativist musicol - friend in his diary, Sanch u¯ jin j o¯ zetsu (Pratt- ogy reflects the rich and diverse world of lings of a mountain hermit, 1814 ): letters in which he moved from the early part of his administrative career. And what is Among the Ancients were those who borrowed now known about his intellectual forma - inspiration from wine to produce paintings

172 lippit and calligraphies. Ki Gyokud o¯ too followed kud o¯ ’s drunken persona provided the frame - this course. Intoxication bears within it an work through which his contemporaries experience of the heavens themselves and is understood and appreciated his artistry. Con - thus quite unlike the concerted action of mor - versely, and in keeping with the literati cult tals. Gyokud o¯ would first begin to enter into of personality, Gyokud o¯ ’s artistry was also the appropriate spirit when drinking, and once a means through which his contemporaries he lowered his brush to paper it would not stay could appreciate his drunken persona, the still. When the inspiration lessened, he would desist. In such a manner, for a single scroll, he behavioral enactment of the ideal of nat ural- would sometimes repeat the cycle over ten ness. In the modern era, however, Gyo- times. Works thus inspired attracted all who kud o¯ ’s fondness for alcohol came to be inter - saw them, and were brimming with flavor no preted as paradigmatic of the unfettered matter how much one partook of them. When condition of the authentic literatus. 36 Some he became too drunk, however, his brushwork recent commentators have added to this devolved, and his buildings, trees, and rocks view an additional diagnostic register by would become undistinguishable. 32 ascribing psychobiographical symptoms to his intemperance: according to this under - Or, as follows in Section of Chikudens o¯ 84 standing, Gyoku do¯ ’s “alcoholic indulgence” shiy u¯ garoku (Old Man Chikuden’s record of was “incurred by his resignation, perhaps, paintings by teachers and friends): but also related to other besetting prob - Each morning Gyokud o¯ would rise early, clean lems that caused him discouragement and up the room, burn incense, and play the qin. anguish,” such as his later disaffection with Between five and seven in the morning he his domainal lord and the death of his wife would drink three cups of sake and often say, in 1792 and daughter in 1795 .37 In this view, “It is as if I had the Emperor’s Imperial order Gyokud o¯ ’s autonomy came to be shadowed to adjust the musical pitch, and being in that by an escapist urge, his bacchanalianism 33 situation I must devote myself to it.” rediagnosed as alcoholism. Whether the sub - Finally, in Chikudens o¯ shiwa (Old Man ject is his painting or his personality, Chikuden’s discussions of poetry), the liter - Gyokud o¯ ’s modern historiography has been atus described Gyokud o¯ as follows: so conditioned by his reputation for inebri - ety that it has overlooked an obvious first In the winter of 1807 , Gyokud o¯, who was line of interrogation: a clearheaded exami - skilled at the qin, met with me at the Jimy o¯ -in nation of Gyokud o¯ ’s wine and ink. Until and we lived there, eating and sleeping, for now this relationship has been taken at face more than forty days. He was then in his sixties; his hair was white and his beard long. value. At the level of visual analysis, the Yet he still looked young and sang quite well; sketchiness and abbreviation of Gyokud o¯ ’s he was not bothered by the hollows where brushwork has been understood as a trace or his teeth had fallen out. It was marvelous. manifestation of his tipsiness, instead of as He enjoyed wine in particular, and when he an analogy. became drunk would compose short poems, We should be wary, however, of reading too each of which would always mention the qin. much into accounts of Gyokud o¯ ’s bibu - Gyokud o¯ would also compose small landscape lousness, or of understanding his facture as scenes, the brushwork of which was highly the consequence of an alcohol-induced motor textured. Neither [poetry nor painting] would incoordination. The primary reason for such conform to convention but were excellent and skepticism stems from the prevalence of full of charm ( omomuk i). 34 the trope of the drunken painter in East The artist’s relationship to alcohol described Asia, which in the Chinese context dates here was confirmed in his epitaph, authored back to as early as the ninth century but is by the famous poet Rai San’y o¯(1780 –1832 ), borrowed from the much earlier trope of the a close friend of Shunkin: “When someone intoxicated poet. The sage-philosophers Con - requested a painting, he would drink before fucius and Zhuangzi offered two important taking up the brush, and then joyously paint models for the enjoyment of wine. The for - with great refinement.” 35 mer is recorded in the Analects as asserting As San’y o¯ ’s epitaph and the numerous that although there are no limits on the con - accounts of Chikuden demonstrate, Gyo- sumption of wine, it should not be indulged

lippit 173 to the point where one loses control. The and abbreviations of form. Early calligra - principle reflected here is that there is no phers associated with this mode, such as absolute template for social behavior, but Xu ( 675 –759 ) and Huaisu (c. 735 – that ideally one should adjust one’s actions c. 800 ), attempted to convey through it an to suit the occasion, taking care never to effect of eccentricity and expressiveness. tilt into excess. 38 The impression made by their calligraphy The Zhuangzi, however, proved to be even corresponded well with their portrayals more influential in its championing of in contemporary and slightly later texts. “wholeness from wine” as a master meta- Zhang Xu, for example, was included among phor for spontaneity of mind, harmony with the “Eight Drunken Immortals” versified the Way, and the condition of the enlightened by Du Fu: man. 39 This idea provided the philosophical foundation for a long-standing cultural tra - In Zhang Xu, three cups summon forth the dition in which intoxication was viewed Cursive Script Sage: He strips off his cap and bares his head before as a primary characteristic of the Daoist princes and lords, sage, as well as the best catalyst for those Wielding his brush over the paper like clouds 40 hoping to approximate or achieve sagehood. and mist. 43 Accordingly, many poets reddened their voices just enough to gain a measure of Another description of Zhang Xu, in Li Zhao’s exhilaration, along the way shifting the con - ninth-century Tang guo shi bu (Supplement text of ingestion to the realm of reclusion. to the history of the ), was later Celebrated recluses such as Ruan Ji (210 –263 ), canonized as emblematic of his method: “Xu Ji Kang ( 223 –262 ), and other members of the would drink wine and then execute his cur - “Seven Sages of the Bamboo Grove” were sive script, wielding the brush and shout - exemplary of a counterculture ideal that ing, or dip his head into the ink and write inspired the flushed approach to versification with it, so that the whole world referred to practiced by poets such as Tao Qian ( 365 – him as Crazy Zhang. After he had sobered up, 427 ). 41 The protagonist of Tao’s poetry was he would look at what he had done. He pro - often a farmer-scholar or mountain hermit nounced it demonic and prodigious, and he who experienced sweet drunkenness in soli - was never able to reproduce it.” 44 tude, as witnessed in his celebrated “Drink - Implicit in such accounts was the belief ing Wine” poems. 42 The intoxication therein that alcohol could transform an individual reflected a philosophical outlook empha - into a medium through which the cosmic sizing a release from mundane preoccupa - forces of creation could be embodied. As tions and a concomitant privileging of the Peter Sturman has noted, however, the wild- carefree man and the here-and-now. During cursive tradition represented a contradic - the Tang period, poets such as Du Fu ( 712 – tion between the ideals of an alcohol-induced 770 ) and Li Bai ( 701 –762 ) followed in this erasure of subjectivity and the boldly ener - disposition but with even less restraint to getic appearance of the writing itself. 45 their topery, their poetic metabolisms con - In other words, the highs and lows of wild- sistently stimulated by “the long ecstasy cursive calligraphy were disjunctive with of wine” and their works defining the the calm and equanimity of the selflessness more inspired pole of a Chinese poetics of that was understood to be brought on by intoxication that would last well over a the intake of spirits. 46 millennium. A similar paradox informs the trope of It was under the sway of this tradition the drunken painter, which emerged from that descriptions of calligraphers creating anecdotes about Zhang Xu’s calligraphic under the influence first began to appear. performances. A memorable entry concern - Most often these accounts were linked to ing the Chinese painter Wang Mo (“Ink practitioners of “wild-cursive” ( kuang cao ) Wang”) is found in Zhu Jingxuan’s Tangchao calligraphy, in which characters were brushed minghua lu (Celebrated painters of the Tang in a highly cursive and barely legible man - dynasty), a compilation of painters’ biogra - ner, incorporating radical disparities in scale phies from the ninth century:

174 lippit Whenever he wanted to paint a picture, Wang aware of this long tradition of rhetorical rev - Mo would first drink wine, and when he was elry in both and poetry. In sufficiently drunk, would splash the ink the Japanese context it was already deeply onto the painting surface. Then, laughing and ingrained in the Five Mountains (Gozan) com - singing all the while, he would stamp on it munities of Buddhist monks in medi- with his feet and smear it with his hands, eval Kyoto, who were well versed in conti - besides swashing and sweeping it with the nental art criticism and frequently inscribed brush. The ink would be thin in some places, rich in others; he would follow the shapes or commented on ink paintings in the form which brush and ink had produced, making of poetry. One of the best-known works by these into mountains, rocks, clouds and mists, the fifteenth-century monk-painter Sessh u¯ wash in wind and rain, with the suddenness To¯yo¯, Splashed-Ink Landscape (Haboku san - of Creation. It was exactly like the cunning sui zu ) ( 1495 ) (fig. 3), is accompanied by a of a deity; when one examined the painting poetic encomium by the monk Gett o¯ Sh u¯ky o¯ after it was finished he could see no traces of (d. 1500 ) that declares that “the intoxicated the puddles of ink. 47 ink within one’s heart is the most outstand - ing.” Another monk and scribe, Sh o¯ ju¯ Ry u¯ to¯ Another account of Wang Mo describes (1429 –1498 ), adds, “Limitless is the joy of him using his hair to spread ink much in the landscapes that emanate from the tips of manner of Zhang Xu. Given these similari - inebriated brushes,” indicating the degree to ties with corresponding descriptions of wild- which knowledgeable com mentators at this cursive practitioners, it is reasonable to time were cognizant of the proper descriptive assume that they are at least partially con - protocols for open-ended brushwork. 51 structed, conjured up because they were By Gyokud o¯ ’s own time, the idea that believed to resonate with the splashed-ink wine enabled the transcendence of artistic forms and performative persona associated convention, along with an awareness of the with Wang Mo. 48 Although neither Wang Mo genealogy of artists who practiced it, was nor calligraphers in the mold of Zhang Xu widely shared among the literati community. were favored by later influential literati such In his treatise Kaiji higen (Humble words as Su Shi ( 1037 –1101 ) and Huang Tingjian on painting), published 1800 , the painter (1045 –1105 ), their intense focus on natural - Kuwayama Gyokush u¯(1746 –1799 ) described ness of expression ensured that alcohol the manner in which his contemporaries continued to play a significant role in the dis - used a straw or reed brush ( warafude ) in course on transparency and self-effacement order to achieve certain unusual pictorial in the brush arts. 49 Thus the rhetoric of effects evocative of Wang Mo. 52 Chikuden, the intoxicated brush remained in the arse - meanwhile, also made reference to Wang nal of later literati painters, especially those Mo in his Sanch u¯ jin j o¯ zetsu (Prattlings of a whose work was characterized by loose brush mountain hermit), contrasting his liberal effects. Xu Wei ( 1521 –1593 ), for example, use of ink with the sparseness with which who practiced a “boneless” (contourless) the painter Li Cheng applied his pigments. 53 mode of painting based on a planar and And the same author invoked Wang Mo laissez-faire use of ink, embraced indul- when he stated in the passage previously gence in spirits as a central part of his self- cited that “among the Ancients were those presentation. Accordingly, he was often asso - who borrowed inspiration from wine.” Pas - ciated with the splashed-ink tradition that sages such as these suggest that the example reached back to Wang Mo, and he viewed of this early Chinese painter was not un- himself as a follower of Zhang Xu, occa - familiar in Japanese literati culture and that sionally employing the seal-name Kuang Mo his highly performative suspension of sobri - (Crazy Ink) and using colophons to his own ety may have provided a specific point of ref - works to narrate their origins in drunken erence for those painters—ranging from revelry. 50 Ikeno Taiga to Tachihara Ky o¯ sho ( 1785 – The considerable commentarial literature 1840 )—who occasionally indicated on their on Gyokud o¯ has underemphasized the extent scrolls that their works were the result of a to which he and members of his circle were wine-induced carouse.

lippit 175 No Japanese painter, however, came close 3. Sessh u¯To¯yo¯, Splashed-Ink to matching the frequency of Gyokud o¯ ’s Landscape (Haboku sansui zu ), 1495 , vertical hanging claims to tipsification, whether in signatures, scroll, ink on paper seals, painting inscriptions, or poetry. Chiku - den, a close friend of Gyoku do¯ and the most 4. Urakami Gyokud o¯, Tall important of his commentators, no doubt Mountains and Expansive played a significant role in instilling Gyo- Waters (Sank o¯ suich o¯ zu ), c. 1812 , vertical hanging kud o¯ ’s circle with an awareness of the pedi - scroll, ink and light colors gree of drunken pictorial representation in on paper Chinese letters. Shunkin, for instance, fol - Okayama Prefectural Museum lowed Chikuden’s opposition between Li Cheng and Wang Mo when he mentioned the latter and his splashed-ink technique in a colophon to Enkach o¯ (Album of fog and mist). 54 Given the frequency with which the latter is invoked either directly or indirectly in treatises of the period, it is clear that an awareness of a genealogy of tippler-painters suffused the environment in which Gyokud o¯’s own drunkenness became the object of dis - course. Yet the most decisive example of Gyokud o¯ ’s consciousness of this tradition lies in the sobriquet Suiky o¯ (Drunkenville) that he used from approximately 1804 until his death in 1820 . This sobriquet makes spe - cific reference to a prose essay authored by the early Tang poet Wang Ji ( 590 –644 ), titled Zuixiang ji (The story of Drunkenville). 55 Wang Ji is recognized as the Chinese drunken poet par excellence, the “tippler-hermit” whose oeuvre is replete with references to the emptying of cups and the sweet stupefaction that follows. The story describes a Daoist- inspired allegory of a paradisiacal polity whose rulers and citizens are free of desire and have achieved harmony with the Way. Making many specific references to early texts of philosophical Daoism, its opening describes this land as follows:

I don’t know how far it is from Drunkenville to the Middle Kingdom. Its land is vast and bound - less; there are no hills or steep slopes. The cli - mate there is always calm and stable; the sky is never too gloomy or too bright, and the weather never too cold or hot. The way of life there is the Grand Harmony; there are no town - ships or settlements. People there are very free of desire, and they lack the emotions of love, hate, joy, and rage. They inhale wind and drink dew and eat none of the five grains. When lying down, they sleep undisturbed; when up, they move about unconcerned. They mingle with fish, tur - tles, birds, and beasts; they are ignorant of the use of boats, carriages, instruments, and tools. 56

176 lippit As Ding Xiang Warner has observed, Drunk - enville “is not a place but a state of mind,” whose citizens “occupy themselves in the aimless naturalness of the animal kingdom rather than in human social institutions,” and whose rulers “govern by paying proper respect to the power of wine.” 57 In adopting the title of Wang Ji’s essay as one of his most prominent seal names, Gyokud o¯ signaled his awareness of a power- ful, centuries-long tradition of employing drunkenness as a metaphor for philosophi - cal ideals, and thereby provided an implicit framework within which his persona and brushwork were to be received. Accordingly, his paintings can unambiguously be under - stood as highly rhetorical and self-conscious performances of drunken mark making. From inscriptions on the works it can be determined that the audience for these per - formances ranged from anonymous recipi - ents to celebrated members of a growing nationwide community of Japanese literati. The well-known poet-monk Unge ( 1773 – 1850 ), for example, was the recipient in 1812 of Tall Mountains and Expansive Waters (Sank o¯ suich o¯ zu ) (fig. 4), a work in which Gyokud o¯ added an inscription referring to himself as a “drunken ogre,” stating that the painting was executed “in exchange for sake brought by Unge.” On another occasion, in 1805 , Gyokud o¯ painted Seeking Inspiration amid Mountains and Rivers (Ko¯ zan bekku zu ) for Ota Nanpo ( 1749 –1823 ), the noted spe - cialist of light satirical fiction, and inscribed a self-referential verse on its surface:

A solitary old man arrives, with no apparent abode of his own, The sun is already low when he staggers away drunkenly singing. Embracing his zither, he visits the mountains and waters west of Kyushu 58

Again, such inscriptions facilitated a read - ing of Gyokud o¯ ’s work as exemplary of negative craftsmanship and of the painter himself as the paragon of a modus vivendi embodying literati ideals. Intriguingly, how - ever, in Gyokud o¯ ’s case the fashioning of this persona was apparently a group effort, with members of his circle echoing and expanding on Gyokud o¯ ’s own descriptions of his deportment. Unge reciprocated Gyo- kud o¯ ’s gift of a painting with a poem titled

lippit 177 “Gyokud o¯ro¯ jin no sansui o miru” (On view - impossible to determine, and the way they ing a landscape by Old Man Gyokud o¯ ) that are communicated as a physical and spiritual describes him as a “drunken zither player” condition for artistic production. In the before proceeding to discuss the “pure work - realm of painting, as in calligraphy, although ings” of his “meandering brush.” 59 Chiku - there were general parameters that governed den’s various accounts of Gyokud o¯ were so the rules of drunken facture—loose and rapid lavishly embellished that focusing solely on (spontaneous) brushwork, an emphasis on those passages that concern his love of spir - range in liquidity, disregard for conventions its does not do them justice. Indeed, in a of composition, and so forth—many of its prefatory description to the passage quoted most distinguished examples vary widely in earlier that recounted Gyokud o¯ ’s morning their final appearance. The way in which drinking habits, Chikuden describes his sub - Gyokud o¯ ’s characteristic mode of landscape ject as “white-haired and yet youthful in painting, executed under the sign of intoxi - his complexion, wearing white clothes as cation, signals a suspension of sobriety though trimmed with the down from cranes,” requires a careful reading of his works in and carrying “the qin on his shoulders with relation to the patterns of literati pictor- great dignity.” Chikuden concludes, “Gaz - ialism from which his later brush habits ing at him I knew he was not an ordinary per - emerged. son.” 60 In the hands of Chikuden, Gyokud o¯’s inspiration from spirits was part of a more Contrary to what one might expect from a general portrayal in which he was cast as a “drunken ogre,” Gyokud o¯ ’s landscapes are radiant, auratic figure, a kind of Daoist often densely textured compositions that immortal. Gyokud o¯ himself was therefore aim to evoke the atmospheric and poetic only one, albeit a primary, voice in this pre - effects suggested by their title inscriptions. sentation. The accounts by Chikuden, along These works typically depict moments of with those of San’y o¯ , Shunkin, and others, seasonal transition suffused with soft mist clearly demonstrate that this was a case of or rain (see fig. 2), and are either devoid of personation by committee. 61 human presence or inhabited by a solitary fig - A proper intoxicology of Gyokud o¯’s ure found crossing a bridge or seated in one artistry, however, cannot end here, with an of the fanciful pavilions situated on a moun - assessment of his self-presentation as so tainside; when finally located, these minia - much rhetorical posturing. Despite Gyo- ture figures provide a sense of scale for the kud o¯ ’s deployment of a poetics of intoxica - entire scene. Although the landscapes are tion, it would be nonsensical to claim that usually monochrome, occasional touches he never actually partook of wine, and that of red and yellow are employed to depict inebriation was never incorporated into his autumn foliage, the color pigments floating art making in a meaningful way. The focus on the surface as if on a scrim (fig. 5). The here on the constructedness of Gyokud o¯ ’s smaller works follow a basic “hills beyond drunken persona is in no way meant to a river” composition in which the land imply total abstention. Far from it; judging masses are grouped all across the foreground by the nature and specificity of those few sur - and background, separated by a flat plain or viving accounts of his habits of ingestion, it body of water (fig. 6). The larger works often seems reasonable to assume that the appetite reveal a lack of surety, a precarious piling on for alcohol consistently described by con - of forms that results in a top-heavy master temporaries, especially those in his own mountain. Certain motifs are manically circle, had some basis in reality. This appears repeated or exaggerated within Gyokud o¯ ’s to be the case throughout the history of landscapes, such as the flat hilltop clearing, rhetorical inebriation: that its greatest par - which is often abstracted into curious cir - takers were oftentimes actually partaking, cular areas of untouched white paper (see fig. that there was some substance to their abuse. 4). The most common feature of his work, The crucial distinction, however, lies however, is its shimmering, kinetic qual - between any actual habits of alcoholic con - ity, introduced by the overlay of dry, short, sumption, which in Gyokud o¯ ’s case are horizontal strokes that characteristically

178 lippit 5. Urakami Gyokud o¯, Mountains Dyed Scarlet (Sank o¯ osen zu ), detail, c. 1815 –1820 , vertical hanging scroll, ink and light colors on paper Private collection

angle slightly upward to the right on diluted the “Mi dot,” a short horizontal brushstroke planes of lighter ink. This characteristic associated with the early Chinese literatus effect, as if the landscape is perpetually in a ( 1051 –1107 ). It is formed by laying the state of settling into view, results from thickest part of the brush sideways on the Gyokud o¯’s highly self-conscious and ambiva - paper and pressing slowly, as if applying a lent relationship to conventional modes of thumbprint. This technique was employed literati pictorial representation, which he to build up mountainous forms in one of relied on and discursively negated at the Gyokud o¯ ’s earliest surviving works, South - same time. ern Mountains (Nanzan jukan ), a horizontal Early in his career, Gyokud o¯ took as his handscroll dated to 1787 (fig. 7). 62 The sub - point of departure one of the most standard sequent development of Gyokud o¯ ’s brush - models for brushwork in the literati canon, work can be understood as a slow meditation

lippit 179 6. Urakami Gyokud o¯, Old Trees in Lonely Springtime (Ro¯ju sh u¯ shun zu ), c. 1815 –1820 , vertical hanging scroll, ink on paper Dr. and Mrs. Robert Feinberg Collection

7. Urakami Gyokud o¯, Southern Mountains (Nanzan jukan ), detail, 1787 , horizontal handscroll, ink and light colors on paper Private collection, Japan

180 lippit on and elaboration of the Mi dot into a more still. When the inspiration lessened he would dynamic and malleable unit with which to desist. In such a manner, for a single scroll mediate his landscapes. In later works he he would sometimes repeat the cycle more includes a layering of drier, darker Mi dots than ten times.” over moister, lighter ones, varying their Although this passage should be viewed length and combining them with other types with some skepticism, it nevertheless pro - of dots and slashes to form a textural skin for vides a description of Gyokud o¯ ’s actual prac - the scene at hand. Although Gyokud o¯’s tice. What differentiates it most dramatically brushwork is thus rooted in traditional from accounts of Zhang Xu and Wang Mo at literati technique, it quickly departs from work is the cyclical nature of Gyokud o¯ ’s such norms, reflecting his anxiety about a engagement with wine. Chikuden describes close relationship to convention that is man - a peculiar process whereby Gyokud o¯ would ifest in his few recorded views concerning his imbibe alcohol and then wait for its effects own craft. A poem published as part of an to take hold before taking up his brush, then anthology to mark his retirement from proceed to paint until the high wore off, domainal administrative duties, for example, repeating the process ten or more times in declares: order to complete a painting. 65 This process is less one of unbridled spontaneity than of I am too lazy and obstinate to paint small premeditated insobriety, a somewhat forced scenes; manner of inducing the proper state of I can wet the black ink and grind the red, but heightened sensitivity or liberated aware - ideas are difficult. ness with which to execute a literati paint - Why busy myself to death with my small talents? ing. Gyokud o¯ appears to be embodying the Better to discard the brush and face the true rhetorical trope of the drunken painter, mountains. 63 earnestly performing the role of the untram - meled artist. He is here practicing a form of In Mizukara Gyokud o¯ no kabe ni shirusu method acting. (Gyokud o¯ ’s wall writing), the autobio graph - More significantly, Chikuden’s account ical text mentioned above, Gyokud o¯ states: spells out a dialectic of sobriety and inebri - “I paint without knowledge of the ancient ation that corresponds to the dialogic rela - Six Laws; it is all done at random and I tionship between exquisite craft and clumsi- detest being a ‘painter.’” The Six Laws of ness in much of Gyokud o¯ ’s output. The Painting of which he professes ignorance most impressive manifestation of this rela - are the classical foundation of all East Asian tionship is Eastern Clouds, Sifted Snow painting technique, formulated by Xie He (To¯ un shisetsu zu ) (see fig. 1), a landscape in the mid-sixth century. 64 Although the scroll whose signature states that it was claim to methodlessness was by this time painted by the artist in a state of intoxication. a common refrain among East Asian liter- Commonly dated to around 1811 /1812 , when ati painters, its presence in Gyokud o¯’s Gyokud o¯ settled in Kyoto and was entering text should not be dismissed lightly, for it the final decade of his life, this is widely provides an unambiguous articulation of considered to be the most remarkable work his pursuit of negative facture, along with in a remarkable oeuvre. 66 This large and a context in which to assess the role of intricately structured scroll, depicting a inebrious inspiration. snowy mountainside at dawn, resembles a In this regard, Chikuden’s eyewitness pictorial negative of Gyokud o¯ ’s other land - account of Gyoku do¯ ’s approach to painting, scapes. Tall trees in the lower foreground, recorded in Sanch u¯ jin j o¯ zetsu (Prattlings of perched on two landmasses connected by a a mountain hermit) and cited earlier, merits bridge, establish the upward trajectory of close attention. Chikuden describes an un- numerous snow-capped mountain forms and expected process whereby Gyoku do¯ method - areas shrouded in powdery mist, the latter ically creates under the influence: “Gyoku do¯ depicted with a soft, highly diluted gray would first begin to enter into the appropri - wash. The mountainscape is punctuated ate spirit when drinking, and once he low - with areas of dark wash that surround archi - ered his brush to paper it would not stay tectural forms, such as a pair of rooftops

lippit 181 and a pagoda in the middle left. Much of and drinking, as described by Chikuden: its the surface is covered with Gyokud o¯ ’s trade - brushwork is only locally and occasionally mark horizontal and right- and upward-lean - intoxicated. ing strokes, in this case thickly and moistly Eastern Clouds, Sifted Snow represents applied. Remarkably, however, these strokes the most accomplished expression of a pic - are also employed to fill in the dark, bruised torial persona that Gyokud o¯ struggled to sky, especially around the main snow-cov - develop and inhabited uneasily during the last ered peak at the top, transforming the void decade of his life. Its ability to hold up to char - or negative space around the snow-capped acterological analysis is based on the notion mountain into its textural echo. In addition, that traces and patterns of nonintention are the surface is selectively defined by the spi - most legible as such when played out within dery, lacelike branch systems of mostly leaf - a highly conventional field of representa - less trees, while spattered red pigment is tion. This strategy of embedding expres - used to depict what appears to be the remains sions of exhilarated brush dynamics within of autumn foliage and possibly intimations received structures of literati picture making of emerging sunlight at dawn. The overall —including compositional templates, pro - effect is one of a brooding, dramatic, hoary tocols of brushwork, and iconographies of yet somehow vibrant snowscape. The sub - virtue—places in high relief the representa - ject matter is unclear; the significance of tional role of any putative intoxicants, and 8. Urakami Gyokud o¯, Eastern Clouds, Sifted Snow centers on the was explored by Gyokud o¯ with more and Eastern Clouds, Sifted Snow interpretation of its title, inscribed to the left more frequency from – onward. (To¯un shisetsu zu ), detail, 1811 1812 c. 1811 –1812 , vertical of its main mountain peak. Although the In his late works, however, the scale of the hanging scroll, ink and light title could be understood as descriptive of a visual field was drastically diminished: in colors on paper Kawabata Foundation, Kanagawa specific atmospheric condition, one theory contrast to the expansive, vertically oriented Prefecture proposes that it makes reference to an erotic Chinese legend about a mountain goddess. 67 Whatever the resonances of its title, East - ern Clouds, Sifted Snow represents a care - fully constructed snowscape in which patches of unpainted surface are reserved and set off by their inked surroundings. Lay - ers of wash, horizontal texture strokes, and shadowy, filigreed tree branches form a uniquely textured membrane over the entire scroll. The distribution of motifs and forms is judicious, while the calibration of grada - tion, liquidity, and saturation is measured. Locally, however, individual brushstrokes can appear slapdash, as in the graffiti-like, crosshatched trees of the middle portion of the scroll (fig. 8). The burnished, darkly inked patches around the architectural forms consist of frenetically applied brushwork, while the red dots of autumn foliage are flung across the surface, spattering well beyond the vicinity of the trees they were meant to adorn. Such free play at the local level is effective only because of the order - liness of the entire pictorial structure. The looseness of microfacture here is enabled by the composure of composition and tonal distribution. In this sense, Eastern Clouds, Sifted Snow serves as an embodiment of Gyokud o¯ ’s method of syncopated painting

182 lippit as a landscape, acknowledging the limits of any utopian pursuit of naturalness and skill-lessness. Gyokud o¯ did not always observe these limits, as Chikuden notes: “When he became too drunk, however, his brushwork devolved, and his buildings, trees, and rocks would become undistinguishable.” As Clouds and Mountains Dimly Discerned appears to demonstrate, then, it was only when a cer - tain measure of detoxication was main - tained that the trope of the drunken painter was most successfully activated. The dif - ference between an undistinguishable and undistinguished painting was located in its ability to intimate a transcendence of sub - jectivity, or to preview a condition of art - lessness, while still moored in a mundane state of selfhood. Gyokud o¯ ’s actuation of the tradition of the drunken painter ultimately provides insight into the nature of literati pictorialism, predicated as it was on a fundamental con - tradiction: In order to make literati ideals pictorially legible to the appropriate com - munities, one had to have “skills”; but these 9. Urakami Gyokud o¯, Clouds surface of Eastern Clouds, Sifted Snow, skills betrayed the very ideals they were and Mountains Dimly Gyokud o¯ increasingly preferred small rec - mobilized to convey. The most ambitious Discerned (Unzan moko zu ), c. 1815 –1820 , vertical tangular and roundel formats. The small, projections of literati identity recognized hanging scroll, ink on paper squarish frame of Clouds and Mountains the artistic fecundity of this dilemma. And Private collection, Japan Dimly Discerned (Unzan moko zu ) (fig. 9), a wide array of solutions, of which Gyoku do¯’s for example, measures only some thirty was one inimitable example, were arrived at centimeters on a side, greatly condensing over the centuries to give expression to this the pictorial qualities that characterized state of negative facture. In this sense, literati earlier scrolls. In this work, the conceit of painting can be understood as aspiring to a stupefied artistry—the “Drunkenville” seal craft of perpetual self-erasure, in which the is impressed here as well—mediates the foregrounding of the process of auto-efface - entire image, blurring motifs into semi- ment itself became the precondition and indistinguishability. As the title indicates, focus of viewer empathy. And, ideally, it clouds and mountains appear to fuse into triggered a recognition on the part of the one another, achieving an ideal pictorial beholder that the painting was participating expression of the cosmic forces that gener - in a project that was shared, and bound for ate natural phenomena. Yet the painting failure, but that the painter would try and try maintains a crucial, if threadbare, legibility again.

lippit 183 NOTES Edo-period painting treatises, such as Gaj o¯yo¯ ryaku (Abbreviated essentials of the vehicle of painting, . Although employed throughout this essay as a 1 1833 ), it was not uncommon for Gyokud o¯ to be matter of convenience, the term literati painting, denied his own biographical entry and instead given derived from the Chinese term wenren, which brief mention in an entry devoted to Shunkin. became widely used only during the Ming period (1368 –1644 ), may not be the most appropriate to 12 . Stephen Addiss, Tall Mountains and Flowing describe a body of work that, in its various incarna - Waters: The Arts of Uragami Gyoku do¯ (Honolulu, tions, has also been referred to as the painting of 1987 ), 17 . One of these transcriptions appears as the scholar-amateurs or scholar-officials (Chinese preface to Gyokud o¯ ’s Kokin yoji ch o¯ (Album of shidafu ), or as is common in Japan, “Southern leisurely playing the zither, 1817 ), which Tessai School painting” ( Nanga ). The terms idealist paint - appears to have owned; he inscribes the title label, ing and gentlemanly painting have also been used. box, preface, and colophon. See K o¯ no Motoaki, ed., In the Japanese scholarly community, debate contin - Gyokud o¯ , Chikuden, Beisanjin, vol. 2 of Edo ues over what to call this general category of works. meisaku gach o¯ zensh u¯ (Compendium of famous For key arguments in this debate, see K o¯ no Motoaki, Edo painting albums) (Tokyo, 1993 ), 24 . “Nihon bunjinga shiron” (An essay on Japanese 13 . Hashimoto Kansetsu, Urakami Gyokud o¯ (Tokyo, literati painting), Kokka ( ): – . 1207 1996 5 13 1926 ); Yano Ky o¯ son, Urakami Gyokud o¯ (Tokyo, 1926 ). . See, for example, Aida-Yuen Wong, “A New Life 2 14 . See Ohara Magosabur o¯ , ed., Uragami Gyokud o¯ for Literati Painting in the Early Twentieth Century: gafu (Paintings by Urakami Gyokud o¯) (Kurashiki Eastern Art and Modernity, a Transcultural Narra - City, 1933 ). Although known primarily as a collector tive?” Artibus Asiae 60 , no. 2 (2000 ): 297 –326 . of Western oil painting, Ohara Magosabur o¯ had an 3. Such studies are too numerous to list here, but interest in Gyokud o¯ that stemmed from the facts two book-length publications worthy of special men - that Magosabu ro¯ also hailed from Okayama, and that tion are Chu-tsing Li et al., eds., Artists and Patrons: his maternal great-grandfather was a friend of the Some Social and Economic Aspects of Chinese painter. On Magosabur o¯, see Tanaka Hisayo, Bijutsu- Painting (Lawrence, Kans., 1989 ), and James Cahill, hin no id o¯ shi—Kindai Nihon no korekutaa-tachi The Painter’s Practice: How Artists Lived and (The history of the movement of art objects: Collec - Worked in Traditional China (New York, 1994 ). tors of modern Japan) (Tokyo, 1981 ), 224 –259 ; Buri - jisuton Bijutsukan, ed., Seiy o¯ bijutsu ni miserareta . This point is made in the introductory chapter of 4 ju¯ gonin no korekutaa 1890 –1940 / Captivated by Craig Clunas, Elegant Debts: The Social Art of Wen Western Art: Fifteen Japanese Art Collectors Zhengming (Honolulu, ). 2004 1890 –1940 [exh. cat., Bridgestone Museum of Art] 5. Jonathan Hay, Shitao: Painting and Modernity in (Tokyo, 1997 ), 19 –22 . Early Qing China (Cambridge, ). 2001 15 . Bruno Taut, Houses and People of Japan (Tokyo, 6. Clunas 2004 . 1937 ). 7. Gyokud o¯ ’s surname has traditionally been pho - 16 . See, for example, Yoshikawa’s “Gyokud o¯ kinshi” neticized as Uragami in English, thus applying a (Gyokud o¯ the qin player, 1934 ), in Yoshikawa Eiji voiced consonant mark to the third phoneme. Pre - zensh u¯ (The complete works of Yoshikawa Eiji) modern Japanese surnames, however, rarely included (Tokyo, 1970 ), 45 :114 . The relationship of Kawabata’s such diacritical changes, and at least one descendant literature to Gyokud o¯ is explored in Hatori Tetsuya, of Gyokud o¯ ’s family in the twentieth century has “Urakami Gyokud o¯ to Kawabata Yasunari—‘Koto wo insisted that Urakami is the proper pronunciation. idaite,’ ‘Tenju no ko,’ ‘Itsumo hanasu hito,’ Sh o¯ wa For a brief discussion, see the unpaginated preface nij u¯ ky u¯ nen no tenki,” “Urakami Gyokud o¯ and by Nakamura Akira in R yu¯ kawa Kiyoshi, Urakami Kawabata Yasunari: The turning point of 1954 and Gyoku do¯ —hito to geijutsu (Urakami Gyokud o¯ : The ‘Embracing the zither,’ ‘Heaven-bestowed child,’ and man and his art) (Tokyo, 1976 ). ‘The person always talked about,’” Seikei daigaku bungakubu kiy o¯ (Journal of the literature depart - . Cited in John M. Rosenfield, Mynah Birds and 8 ment of Seikei University) 38 (2003 ): 1–33 . Flying Rocks: Word and Image in the Art of Yosa Buson (Lawrence, Kans., 2003 ), 9. 17 . Early postwar research on Gyokud o¯ was galva - nized by a major exhibition on the artist in 1954 and 9. Robert L. Thorpe and Richard Ellis Vinograd, eds., culminated in a special issue of the journal Kobijutsu Chinese Art and Culture (New York, ), . 2001 325 (Antique art), vol. 30 (1970 ), devoted to his life and 10 . Hay 2001 , 272 –277 . work. 11 . On the comparative receptions of father and son 18 . See Sugimoto Yoshihisa, “Urakami Gyokud o¯ no see Taketani Ch o¯ jir o¯ , Bunjin garon—Urakami sansuiga to sakuga seishin” (Urakami Gyokud o¯ ’s Shunkin ‘Rongashi’ hy o¯shaku (Literati painting landscapes and approach to painting), Kobunka theory: An annotated translation of Urakami kenky u¯ (Studies in antique culture) 4 (2005 ): 31 –96 . Shunkin’s Rongashi ) (Tokyo, 1988 ), 24 –27 . In later

184 lippit 19 . Tamada was a disciple of Miyake Sh o¯ sai Addiss 1987 . Also useful are recent studies that pro - (1662 –1741 ), who in turn studied with the famous vide a fuller picture of qin culture during the Edo scholar Yamazaki Ansai ( 1618 –1682 ). Tamada’s ideas period. See the various articles found in Gyokud o¯ to have much in common with thinkers associated Shunkin, Sh u¯ kin: Uragami Gyokud o¯ fushi no with the Kaitokud o¯ Merchant Academy in Osaka; geijutsu (Gyokud o¯ , Shunkin, and Sh u¯ kin: The see Tetsuo Najita, Visions of Virtue in Tokugawa art of Urakami Gyokud o¯ and his sons) [exh. cat., Japan: The Kaitokud o¯ Merchant Academy of Osaka Fukushima Prefectural Museum] (Aizu Wakamatsu, (Chicago, 1987 ). 1994 ), especially Kishibe Shigeo, “Urakami Gyokud o¯ Tamada’s practical learning also came to be closely to shigenkin” (Urakami Gyokud o¯ and the seven- associated with the Tatsuno domain (Harima stringed zither), 107 –116 ; Sakata Shin’ichi, Province, present-day Hy o¯ go Prefecture) from where “Gyokud o¯ no kinpu” (Gyokud o¯ ’s zither manuals), he hailed, and Tatsuno scholars formed one impor - 124 –137 ; and Kaketa Hironori, “Aizu ni okeru tant fraternal community for Gyokud o¯ in Edo. Sugi - Urakami Gyokud o¯ fushi no gein o¯ saik o¯ ” (A reconsid - moto’s discovery of numerous references to him in eration of the artistic activities of Urakami Gyokud o¯ the diary of one such scholar, Matano Gyokusen and his son in Aizu), 138 –142 . ( – ), demonstrates the degree to which 1730 1806 . Gyokud o¯ ’s medical instruments are illustrated in Gyokud o¯ ’s cultural formation was indebted to the 24 Takeda K o¯ ichi, Urakami Gyokud o¯ (Tokyo, ), . members of this network, which also included the 1993 7 influential Edo literati painters Kitayama Kangan 25 . On saibara, see Elizabeth J. Markham, (1767 –1801 ) and Nakayama K o¯yo¯(1717 –1780 ). See Saibara: Japanese Court Songs of the Heian Period Sugimoto 2005 , 37 –40 . (Cambridge, 1983 ). 20 . These other scholars included Ouchi Ranshitsu 26 . See Addiss 1987 , 29 –48 , and Kishibe Shigeo, Edo and Udono Shinei. Koky u¯ authored the preface for jidai no kinshi monogatari (Zither masters of the Gyokud o¯ kinpu (Gyokud o¯ ’s qin music, published in Edo period) (Tokyo, 2000 ). 1789 and 1791 ), which is discussed further below. 27 . See Sugimoto 2005 , 72 –88 . . See Sugimoto , – . Gyokud o¯ ’s poetic 21 2005 40 45 . This manner of signing his work already appears development is discussed in Ikezawa Ichir o¯ , Edo 28 on one of Gyokud o¯ ’s earliest known paintings, dated bunjin ron—Ota Nanpo wo c hu¯ shin ni (A theory of to . Edo literati, with a focus on Ota Nanpo) (Tokyo, 1786 2000 ), 40 –82 and 382 –405 . 29 . Gyokud o¯ kinshi sh u¯ (Collection of Gyokud o¯ the qin player) (Takamatsu, ) contains sixty-one . Wang Yangming ( – ) was a Ming 1794 22 1472 1529 Chinese-style poems and includes a preface by dynasty scholar who espoused an idealist form of Minagawa Kien ( – ). A second anthology, neo-Confucian teaching popularized in Japan by 1734 1807 Gyokud o¯ kinshi k o¯ sh u¯ (Later collection of Gyokud o¯ Kumazawa Banzan ( – ) and other scholars in 1619 1691 the qin player), published in , contains seventy- the seventeenth century. O¯ yo¯ mei philosophy was 1797 eight poems. viewed by the Tokugawa shogunate as a radical and subversive alternative to the officially embraced Zhu 30 . Translation by Stephen Addiss in Addiss 1987 , Xi brand of neo- and thus was periodi - 56 , with minor adjustments. The first words, “totally cally suppressed. For a good introduction to Banzan drunk,” were replaced here with “tipsy” as a more and O¯ yo¯ mei thought in Japan, see James McMullen, appropriate translation of the Japanese issui, which Idealism, Protest, and the Tale of : The Confu - connotes a momentary state of stimulation. cianism of Kumazawa Banzan ( 1619 –1691 ) (Oxford, 31 . Translation by Stephen Addiss in Addiss 1987 , 17 . 1999 ). On the National Learning movement, see Harry H. 32 . Although published posthumously in 1836 , this Harootunian, Things Seen and Unseen: Discourse text bears a preface dated to 1813 in which Chikuden and Ideology in Tokugawa Nativism (Chicago, 1988 ), writes that the work had already been completed and Susan L. Burns, Before the Nation: Kokugaku more than ten years earlier, when he was in his mid- and the Imagining of Community in Early Modern twenties. For the most reliable published edition, see Japan (Durham, N.C., 2003 ). As Suzuki Susumu has Takahashi Hiromi, ed., Sanch u¯ jin j o¯ zetsu, Jiga daigo, pointed out, however, Gyokud o¯ ’s interest with both Chikudens o¯ shiy u¯ garoku (Prattlings of a mountain Wang Yangming philosophy and the National Learn - hermit, collected painting inscriptions, and Old Man ing movement was concurrently developed through Chikuden’s record of painting by teachers and his close contact with members of his home domain, friends), vol. 7 of Teihon Nihon kaigaron taisei (Stan - especially the K o¯ moto family of merchants. See dard editions of theory) (Tokyo, Suzuki, Urakami Gyokud o¯ (Tokyo, 1978 ), 19 . 1996 ), 7–47 . See also Taketani Ch o¯ jir o¯ , Chikuden garon Sanch u¯ jin j o¯ zetsu yakkai (Children’s painting . The most important studies of Gyokud o¯ ’s music 23 theory: An annotated translation of Prattlings of a to date are by Stephen Addiss. See “Uragami mountain hermit ) (Tokyo, ). Gyokud o¯ : The Complete Literati Artist” (PhD diss., 1990 University of Michigan, 1977 ); “Gyokud o¯ no 33 . Translation in by Stephen Addiss in Addiss ongaku” (The music of Gyoku do¯), in Sasaki J o¯ hei, 1987 , 22 . ed., Urakami Gyokud o¯ (Tokyo, 1980 ), 90 –96 ; and

lippit 185 34 . Translation adapted from Addiss 1987 , 21 –22 . 47 . Translation by Alexander Soper in “ T’ang ch’ao This text bears a preface dated 1810 ( 7), 11 .27 , ming hua lu: Celebrated Painters of the T’ang and was published the following year, while Chiku - Dynasty by Chu Ching-hsuan of T’ang,” Artibus den was at Jimy o¯ -in temple in Osaka. Asiae 31 (1958 ): 204 –230 . See also Shimada Sh u¯ jir o¯, “Concerning the I-p’in Style of Painting,” trans. 35 . Translation by Stephen Addiss in Addiss 1987 , 28 . James Cahill, parts 1–3, Oriental Art 7, no. 2 (1961 ): 36 . Here almost the entirety of the Gyokud o¯ litera - 66 –72 ; 8, no. 3 (1962 ): 130 –137 ; 10 , no. 1 (1964 ): ture could be cited. See in particular Ry u¯ kawa 1976 , 19 –26 . Originally published as “Ippin gaf u¯ ni tsuite,” 351 –357 , and K o¯ no Motoaki, “Gyokud o¯ to sake” Bijutsu kenky u¯ (Journal of art studies) 161 (1950 ): (Gyokud o¯ and alcohol), in K o¯ no 1993 , 148 –155 . 264 –290 . 37 . See Yoshiho Yonezawa and Chu Yoshizawa, 48 . The earliest extant examples of the splashed-ink Japanese Painting in the Literati Style, trans. Betty landscape tradition that many scholars trace back to Iverson Monroe (New York, 1974 ), 91 . Similar specu - Wang Mo do not appear until the late thirteenth cen - lation is found in Ry u¯ kawa 1976 . tury, in four works in Japanese collections attributed to the Chinese monk-painter Yujian. They are dis - . See the discussion in Maeno, “Ch u¯ goku no shijin 38 cussed in Yukio Lippit, “Of Modes and Manners in to sake” (Chinese poets and alcohol), in Sake (Alco - Medieval Japanese Ink Painting: Sessh u¯ ’s Splashed hol), ed. Hayashi Kentar o¯ (Tokyo, 1976 ), 160 . Ink Landscape of 1495 ,” unpublished paper. . See the passages on drunkenness in Zhuangzi, 39 . Sturman maps out the differing and complex / / , and A. C. Graham, trans., Chuang-tzu: 49 2 19 674 ways in which scholar-officials of the Northern The Seven Inner Chapters and Other Writings Song period ( – ) assessed Zhang Xu’s calligra - from the Book Chuang-tzu (London, ), . 960 1127 1981 137 phy and the role of wine in his writing. See Sturman These passages are cited along with a general discus - . sion in Ding Xiang Warner, “Mr. Five Dippers of 1999 Drunkenville: The Representation of Enlightenment 50 . See, for example, Xu Wei’s colophon to his Scroll in Wang Ji’s Drinking Poems,” Journal of the Ameri - of Flowering Plants and Miscellaneous Subjects, can Oriental Society 118 , no. 3 (July–September painted for his nephew in 1591 . This inscription and 1998 ): 351 . other aspects of Xu Wei’s drunken persona are dis - cussed in Nishigami Minoru, “Hatsuboku kaki zu no . For a sociological account of the theme of drunk - 40 tanj o¯ —Jo’i to Min k o¯ ki no Sekk o¯ bunjin gadan” (The enness in Chinese poetry, see Julia Lee, “Alcohol in birth of splashed-ink flowers-and-grasses paintings: Chinese Poems: References to Drunkenness, Flush - Xu Wei and painting in the Zhejiang region during ing, and Drinking,” Contemporary Drug Problems the late Ming period), in Mindai kaiga to Sessh u¯ (Summer ): – . 13 1986 303 338 (Sessh u¯ and Ming painting) [exh. cat., Nezu Institute 41 . On the Seven Sages of the Bamboo Grove, see of Fine Arts] (Tokyo, 2005 ), 25 –29 . See also Kathleen Audrey Spiro, Contemplating the Ancients (Berkeley, Ryor, “Bright Pearls Hanging in the Marketplace: 1991 ). A discussion of their importance to the later Self-Expression and Commodification in the Painting ideal of the scholar-drunkard is found in Wolfgang of Xu Wei” (PhD diss., Institute of Fine Arts, New Bauer, China and the Search for Happiness, trans. York University, 1998 ). Michael Shaw (New York, 1976 ), 150 –151 . 51 . Lippit (unpublished). The inscriptions on 42 . See James Hightower, “T’ao Ch’ien’s ‘Drinking Splashed-Ink Landscape are transcribed and dis - Wine’ Poems,” in Wen-lin: Studies in the Chinese cussed by Hoshiyama Shin’ya in Iriya Yoshitaka and Humanities, ed. Chow Tse-tsung (Madison, Wis., Shimada Sh u¯ jir o¯ , eds., Zenrin gasan—ch u¯ sei sui - 1968 ), 3–44 ; James Hightower, The Poetry of T’ao bokuga wo yomu (Painting inscriptions of the Zen Ch’ien (Oxford, 1970 ). forest: Reading medieval ink painting) (Tokyo, 1987 ), 205 –210 . 43 . Translation by Amy McNair in The Upright Brush: Yan Zhenqing’s Calligraphy and Song Literati 52 . See Sakazaki Shizuka, Nihon kaigaron taikei Politics (Honolulu, 1998 ), 22 . For a discussion of (Compendium of Japanese painting theory) (Tokyo: Zhang Xu, see McNair 1998 , 21 –26 . 1980 ), 1: 148 . This passage is mentioned in Sat o¯ Yasuhiro, ed., Urakami Gyokud o¯ (Tokyo, ), ; . Translation by Amy McNair in McNair , . 1997 82 44 1998 22 I am indebted to Sat o¯ ’s discussion of the splashed-ink Eugene Wang has shared with me his observation tradition ( – ). that such drunken performances can be traced back 81 85 to certain traditions of popular street performance 53 . For a translation of this passage, see Hugh Wylie, from the Han dynasty. “Nanga Painting Treatises of Nineteenth-Century Japan: Translations, Commentary, and Analysis” . See Peter C. Sturman, “Wine and Cursive: The 45 (PhD diss., University of Kansas, ), ; see also Limits of Individualism in Northern Sung China,” 1991 130 Sat o¯ , . in Cary Y. Liu et al., eds., Character and Context in 1997 82 (Princeton, 1999 ), 200 –231 . 54 . See K o¯ no 1993 , 163 . 46 . Sturman 1999 , 216 –219 .

186 lippit 55 . The sobriquet has been translated as “Drunken 66 . Numerous commentaries on the work have Rustic” by Addiss, but “Story of Drunkenville” been authored over the years. A classic analysis by acknowledges the allusion to Wang Ji. Its translation Yoshizawa Ch u¯ is found in “Urakami Gyokud o¯ hitsu is taken from Warner 1998 . To¯ un shisetsu zu” ( Eastern Clouds, Sifted Snow, by Urakami Gyokud o¯), Kokka (Flowers of the nation) 56 . Translation by Ding Xiang Warner in Warner 706 (1951 ): 31 –37 . See also Sat o¯ 1997 , 36 –39 , and 1988 , 353 . Sugimoto 2005 , 46 –48 . . Warner , . It is also likely that the title 57 1988 353 . Sat o¯ Yasuhiro has raised the possibility that the of Gyokud o¯ ’s autobiographical essay, translated as 67 title refers to the legend of Yaoji, the daughter of a “Gyokud o¯ ’s Wall Writing,” is modeled after Wang Ji’s minor god in southern China. Having died at an early set of eight poems whose title translates as “Scrib - age, Yaoji was buried at Wushan Mountain, where bled on a Tavern Wall.” her spirit continued to reside. One day the king of 58 . See the discussion of this painting in Sat o¯ Chu traveled through the region and camped Yasuhiro, “Un’u no j o¯ kei—Urakami Gyokud o¯ no overnight at the base of the mountain. Yaoji visited erochishizumu—” (The spectacle of clouds and rain: him in his sleep, and, as she was about to take her Urakami Gyokud o¯ ’s eroticism), Museum 491 (1992 ): leave in the morning, the king asked her where she 27 –38 . That Gyokud o¯ ’s poem for Nanpo is composed lived. Yaoji answered that she lived on the peak of of stock elements is suggested by the fact that a sepa - Wushan, where they could next meet: in the morn - rate poem by Gyokud o¯ , one of three that accompa - ing she took the form of clouds, in the evening that nies his painting Regretful Parting amid Mountains of misty rain. The imagery of “clouds and rain” has and Rivers (Obetsu k o¯ zan zu ) (private collection), since become an erotic symbol in the Chinese poetic differs only in its third line. See Sat o¯ 1997 , 44 . tradition. See Sat o¯ 1992 , in which the author has traced the subtle infusion of this imagery into a . See Sat o¯ , . 59 1997 32 number of Gyokud o¯ ’s paintings, including Eastern 60 . Translated by Stephen Addiss in Addiss 1987 , 22 . Clouds, Sifted Snow. The passage is from section 84 of Chikudens o¯ shiy u¯ The title Eastern Clouds, Sifted Snow is also a garoku (Old Man Chikuden’s record of paintings by variation on the title of a painting in an album by teachers and friends). It is interesting to observe the the Chinese painter Li Chubo titled Heavy Clouds association between Chikuden’s account and About to Snow, once owned by Gyokud o¯ , and further Gyokud o¯ ’s often-used seal, Hakuzen kinshi (The includes several homonymic references. The charac - white-bearded qin player). ters for Eastern Clouds can also be understood as “overhanging clouds” or “daybreak” ( shinonome ). In . Itakura Masa’aki discusses a similar phenomenon 61 addition, the character for “sifted” or “sieve” can be among fourteenth-century Chinese literati of the interpreted as “pouring,” as in “pouring or serving Jiangnan region in “Ch o¯ ’u dai ‘Geisan z o¯ ’ (Taipei wine.” This image can refer both to Gyokud o¯ ’s fond - koky u¯ hakubutsuin) wo meguru shomondai” (Various ness for wine and to the merrymaking that is imag - issues related to Portrait of inscribed by ined to have taken place during Yaoji’s evening with Zhang Yu [National Palace Museum, Taipei] ) Bijut - the king of Chu. See K o¯ no 1993 , 152 ; Sat o¯ 1997 , 36 . sushi rons o¯ (Studies in art history) 17 (2001 ): 159 –182 . 62 . Southern Mountains was painted for one of Gyokud o¯ ’s major early patrons in Bizen, K o¯ moto Ichia, to celebrate his seventieth birthday.

63 . Translation by Stephen Addiss in Addiss 1987 , 98 . 64 . Translation by Stephen Addiss in Addiss 1987 , 17 . For a discussion of Xie He’s Six Laws, see John Hay, “Values and History in Chinese Painting, I: Hsieh Ho Revisited,” Res: Anthropology and Aes - thetics 6 (Autumn 1983 ): 72 –111 ; “Values and His - tory in Chinese Painting, II: The Hierarchic Evolution of Structure,” Res: Anthropology and Aesthetics 7–8 (Spring–Autumn 1984 ): 103 –136 . 65 . For a discussion of this process see Sat o¯ 1997 , 38 .

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