576 - Soga Nichokuan

Soga Nichokuan Japan, signed Soga Chokuan ni, with seal, first half of the 17th c. Je Paneel 153 x 62 cm A six-panel folding screen. Ink and gold on paper. Depicting six geese in an autumn landscape with bamboo and rocks. Signed lower right: Soga Chokuan ni, with seal Hōin. From an important German private collection, acquired at Nagel, 6 May 1995, lot 678. - Cf. Exhibition catalogue ''Soga Chokuan Nichokuan no kaiga'' (Paintings by Soga Chokuan and Nichokuan), Nara Prefectural Museum, October/November 1989. Another comparable work is held at the Minneapolis Institute of Art, Minneapolis: Soga Nichokuan, ''Hawks by a Stream'', six-panel folding screen, mid-17th century, inv. no. 2013.31.46.1. The use of the name adopted by Nichokuan suggests that he was the son of Soga Chokuan; ''Nichokuan'' literally means “the second Chokuan”. Soga Chokuan was an independent artist active circa 1570-1610. He is believed to have initially worked in Echizen Province for the Asukara daimyo family. Following the downfall of the family, Chokuan moved to the port city of Sakai, south of present-day Osaka, where he established his own school, specialising particularly in paintings of flowers and birds. Many of his works bear inscriptions by Buddhist monks. Depictions of birds of prey became particularly popular among members of Japan’s warrior class during the 15th and 16th centuries. On large-scale formats such as folding screens, such images provided an impressive backdrop for the reception rooms of the samurai elite, conveying notions of military prowess, power and valour. Like his father, Nichokuan specialised in depictions of birds, particularly hawks and other birds of prey. His highly differentiated rendering of plumage is characteristic, achieved through the meticulous layering of varying tones of ink wash. The hawks of Nichokuan and his father owe much to the tradition of earlier Chinese and Japanese painting. Nichokuan, however, developed this tradition in his own distinctive manner. Particularly in his later works, including the present folding screen, he placed these comparatively conservative and naturalistically rendered birds within almost surreal landscapes of gnarled and wildly twisting trees, jagged rocks and unusually conceived water features. Chokuan is particularly renowned for his depictions of hawks, which, in comparison with those of Nichokuan, often display a remarkably conservative character. Very little is known about the life of Nichokuan. He was regarded as an eccentric and solitary artist. His paintings are characterised by a highly expressive quality, while at the same time displaying a sensitive and meticulous attention to detail - Partial age-related damage and old areas of repair; the screen may have been extended in the upper quarter and subsequently decorated with gold.