In the 18th century in Kyoto, there were many active painters, including Ito Jakuchū (1716-1800 ) who has become especially popular in recent years.
Among them, Maruyama Ōkyo (1733-1795) was born in modern-day Kameoka City, Kyoto, and joined the production of three-dimensional painting called “megane-e” (literally means “eye-glasses painting”; with pictures drawn using Western perspective placed in a box with convex lenses and appeared three-dimensional in the viewer’s eyes) in his twenties. He studied the basic techniques of the Kanō School of painting under Ishida Ūtei (1721-86) who belonged to a sub school of Kanō, the Tsurusawa School. With the support of the abbot of Enman’in Temple in Ōtsu, Shiga Prefecture, Ōkyo worked on paintings emphasizing naturalistic expression by sketching and earned popularity. Furthermore he tackled depicting somethings he had never seen, such as dragons, Chinese landscapes and figures, based on his naturalistic expressions.
Nagasawa Rosetsu (1754-99), one of Ōkyo’s disciples, is believed to have been born in Yodo, Fushimi in Kyoto as a son of a clansman of Yodo domain. In the beginning of his career he used “Ushū” as the seal on his works, and began using “Rosetsu” after starting his discipleship under Ōkyo, before turning 27 years old. Rosetsu started pursuing his own style of painting later which was clearly different from his teacher’s. He created numbers of unique works such as Tigers on the sliding doors of Muryōji temple in Wakayama which render the beast larger than actual size, and 500 Rakan which depicts many tiny figurines on 3cm square paper.
This exhibition explores the attractions of the two painters from the viewpoint of the difference in their painting styles, by exhibiting the works of Ōkyo and Rosetsu side by side and making it possible to compare the different styles of each painter on the same subject and to follow the transition of the changes.