Lingering Snow, 1940s-1950s

Hayashi Unpō
Lingering Snow, 1940s-1950s
Hanging scroll; ink, mineral colors, shell powder and gold wash on silk
Overall size 83 x 21¼ in. (211 x 54 cm)
Image size 49 x 16¼ in. (125 x 41.5 cm)
T-5176

Comes with the original paulownia-wood tomobako storage box titled Zansetsu zu 残雪図 (Painting of Lingering Snow); signed inside: Unpō hitsu 雲鳳筆 (Brushed by Unpō); sealed Unpō 雲鳳.
Signed and sealed at lower right of the painting: Unpō 雲鳳

Born in Kasahara Village, Toki District, Gifu Prefecture, Hayashi Unpō graduated from the Toki District Ceramic School and went on to study under Morimura Giine in Nagoya and Matsuoka Eikyū in Tokyo. In 1930 his painting Umi no jōdo (Sea Paradise) was accepted for the first time into the prestigious Imperial Exhibition (Teiten): he would be selected for the Teiten and its successors almost every year until 1942. During World War II, he was evacuated to Kasahara Town, where he dedicated himself to the preservation and promotion of local culture, serving on the Board of Education and working as an investigator of ancient kilns and cultural properties for Tajimi City. He was named an Honorary Citizen of Kasahara Town in 1981 and also received two Imperial awards: the Order of the Sacred Treasure, Fifth Class (1976) and the Medal with Dark Blue Ribbon (1980).

As an artist, Hayashi Unpō was best known for his work in the Yamato-e painting tradition and was commissioned to produce meticulous copies of important ancient narrative scrolls such as the Engi Emaki of Kokawadera Temple, a designated National Treasure. The present hanging scroll, however, shows him to have been also fully in tune with contemporary developments in a more atmospheric version of Nihonga (neo-nativist Japanese-style painting), using a few deft touches of slight color to depict a moonlit snow scene with a solitary fox, its attention caught by a sudden sound, as it makes its way warily toward a pine forest among leafless deciduous trees, the icebound lichen on their trunks picked out in gofun (calcified crushed shell).