Eastern Art Online, Yousef Jameel Centre for Islamic and Asian Art

Ashmolean − Eastern Art Online, Yousef Jameel Centre for Islamic and Asian Art

Japanese Paintings in the Ashmolean Museum

A catalogue of the Ashmolean's collection of Japanese paintings by Janice Katz (published Oxford, 2003).

Japanese Paintings in the Ashmolean Museum by Janice Katz

Publications online: 43 objects

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Carp swimming in clear water

  • Literature notes

    Ōju was Maruyama Ōkyo’s second son. He was never to head the Maruyama school himself, that role fell to his elder brother Ōshin, so he took the name of Kinoshita and began a branch family.

    Ōju's father painted several images of carp, the best known perhaps being a pair of hanging scrolls in Daijōji temple, Hyōgo of 1789 showing a carp ascending a waterfall and one swimming in calmer waters [this is published in Hyōgo Prefectural Museum of History, Maruyama Ōkyo ten: botsugo nihyakunen kinen (Hyōgo: Hyōgo Prefectural Museum of History, 1994), 115]. Several of Ōkyo’s drawings of carp remained for his students to use when composing their own paintings. Like his other illustrations of fish. Ōkyo no doubt based these drawings on studies from life. In this image, Ōju has painted a single carp which swims just below the surface in the transparent water. With an economy of brushwork, Ōju succeeds in conveying the palpable volume of the fish in his own essay of one of his school’s specialities. Notably, in contrast to many paintings of carp by other artists of the Maruyama school active at this time, Ōju has chosen not to fully describe the fish in crisp detail, but instead has painted a more spontaneous and playful image.
  • Details

    Associated place
    Asia Japan (place of creation)
    AsiaJapanHonshūKyōto prefecture Kyoto (possible place of creation)
    Date
    1777 - 1815
    Artist/maker
    Kinoshita Ōju (1777 - 1815) (artist)
    Maruyama-Shijō School (active late 18th century - late 19th century)
    Material and technique
    ink and light colour on paper
    Dimensions
    43.1 x 57.5 cm (height x width)
    Material index
    Technique index
    Object type index
    No. of items
    1
    Credit line
    Purchased with the assistance of the Friends of the Ashmolean, and Mr and Mrs J. Hillier, 1973.
    Accession no.
    EA1973.144
  • Further reading

    Katz, Janice, Japanese Paintings in the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, with an introductory essay by Oliver Impey (Oxford: Ashmolean Museum, 2003), no. 20 on p. 88, illus. p. 89

Location

    • currently in research collection

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Publications online

  • Japanese Paintings in the Ashmolean Museum by Janice Katz

    Japanese Paintings in the Ashmolean Museum

    Ōju was Maruyama Ōkyo’s second son. He was never to head the Maruyama school himself, that role fell to his elder brother Ōshin, so he took the name of Kinoshita and began a branch family.

    Ōju's father painted several images of carp, the best known perhaps being a pair of hanging scrolls in Daijōji temple, Hyōgo of 1789 showing a carp ascending a waterfall and one swimming in calmer waters [this is published in Hyōgo Prefectural Museum of History, Maruyama Ōkyo ten: botsugo nihyakunen kinen (Hyōgo: Hyōgo Prefectural Museum of History, 1994), 115]. Several of Ōkyo’s drawings of carp remained for his students to use when composing their own paintings. Like his other illustrations of fish. Ōkyo no doubt based these drawings on studies from life. In this image, Ōju has painted a single carp which swims just below the surface in the transparent water. With an economy of brushwork, Ōju succeeds in conveying the palpable volume of the fish in his own essay of one of his school’s specialities. Notably, in contrast to many paintings of carp by other artists of the Maruyama school active at this time, Ōju has chosen not to fully describe the fish in crisp detail, but instead has painted a more spontaneous and playful image.
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