Word: jakuchu
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...took him inside the okushoin, an area of one of the main buildings that had been the head priest's residence for centuries but was now virtually abandoned. Inside the dark building, every room was filled with seemingly forgotten artistic treasures, including the flowers by legendary 18th century painter Jakuchu Ito, which cover every wall of the room that was once the priest's private study. It was unlike anything Takubo had ever laid eyes upon. Unlike much of Japanese art, in which seasonal coherence and the balanced composition of complete landscapes are recurring priorities, these intensely detailed close...
...Perhaps the most influential priest in the shrine's history was Yuzon, an avid painter and powerful art patron who lived there in the late 1700s and whose portrait is among the shown works. He commissioned not just Jakuchu's flowers but also the fine mid-Edo-style door screens in the building's more public areas, where the priest would receive guests. Painted in the late 18th century by Okyo Maruyama, each screen has a different theme, such as cranes, tigers, wise men and waterfalls. Okyo was an important transitional figure in Japanese art, as painting moved toward...
What's more, a sense of humor--even of irreverence--began to seep into religious imagery. Witness a marvelous ink painting of vegetables by Ito Jakuchu (1716-1800). You can read it, with pleasure, as a supremely assured market still life (Jakuchu was, in fact, a vegetable wholesaler before he turned to painting full time). Gourds, melons, turnips, ears of corn and a shiitake mushroom surround an enormous forked white radish, lying as if in state on a basket. But as Singer points out, an educated 18th century Japanese would have recognized this as a parody of a familiar religious...
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