View of the Yabakei Gorge, 1920

Ikeda Yōson
View of the Yabakei Gorge, 1920
Hanging scroll; mineral colors, shell powder and gold on silk
Overall size 80¾ x 21½ in. (202.5 x 54.5 cm)
Image size 50½ x 16¼ in. (128 x 41.5 cm)
T-5173

Comes with the original double wooden tomobako storage boxes, the outer one in tamenuri lacquer and the inner one titled outside: Yabakei 耶馬溪 (Yabakei Gorge); signed and dated inside: Taishō kunen saku Yōson dai 大正九年作　遥邨題 (Painted in 1920; inscribed by Yōson); sealed: Yōson 遥邨
Painting signed and sealed at lower right Yōson 遥邨

Born in Okayama Prefecture, Ikeda Yōson first trained in Yōga (Western-style painting) in Osaka, but soon shifted to Nihonga (neo-nativist painting), studying under Takeuchi Seihō in Kyoto. He traveled extensively dressed in traditional clothing and split-toe tabi footwear, sketching subjects ranging from familiar places along the old travel routes to views of the newly colonized northern island of Hokkaido. His notable published works include Illustrated 53 Stations of the Tōkaidō and Illustrated Famous Places in the 60-Odd Provinces, their themes and titles recalling woodblock-print series by great nineteenth-century masters such as Hiroshige and Hokusai.

He exhibited his work in both the Nihonga and the Yōga divisions of the Teiten national salon and its successor iterations on no fewer than 30 occasions from 1919 until 1957. Over the course of his career he held several important positions in Japan’s art world, becoming a member of the Japan Art Academy and receiving numerous honors including the Order of Culture (1987).

This scroll of the Yabakei Gorge, a beauty spot in Oita Prefecture on the northeastern side of Kyushu, Japan’s southernmost main island, was painted at the very outset of his career, when had just started to show similar work at the Teiten exhibition. It demonstrates his early mastery of a blend of Western painting techniques and color sense with the traditional emotional sensibility of Japanese painting, creating landscapes with a distinctive modern look that would have appealed strongly to the cutting-edge taste of the late Taisho era.