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Lot Essay
This painted screen represents the bridge over the Uji River in southeast Kyoto - an area of rolling hills and clear water, leading it to become one of the sites renowned for its outstanding beauty, and to become incorporated into the canonical group of pictures of famous places (meisho-e) expressing a distinctive Japanese sensibility. Although the scenery of Uji is believed to have been represented in paintings as early as the early Heian period, the earliest extant example of Uji imagery is the fourteenth-century Buddhist tale Ishiyamadera engi emaki (Illustrated History of Ishiyamadera) in which the Uji Bridge and a waterwheel are both depicted. From its first depiction the theme underwent several stages of development, before reaching the magnificent composition of this screen, produced during the Momoyama period - the great age of screen painting, when devices such as bold asymmetrical composition combined with lavish use of gold were used to dramatic effect.
This screen would have originally been one of a pair - this being the left-hand screen. The bridge would have continued onto the right-hand screen, sweeping dramatically downwards, with further willow trees either side and a moon to complete the composition. This left screen boldly depicts the bridge, framed by two willow trees left and right. A waterwheel turns in the river, surrounded by stone-filled baskets (jakugo) which protect the river banks from erosion. Irregularly-shaped clouds formed of small pieces of gold leaf pasted onto the gold ground gently conceal elements of the scene from sight. The three-dimensional rendering of the waterwheel and baskets in built-up gesso adds a sense of realism, but also decoration.
This subject must have been extremely popular during the Momoyama and early Edo periods as numerous examples exist today - including in the Tokyo National Museum, the Kyoto National Museum as well as American collections including the Minneapolis Institute of Arts and the Burke Collection in The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Most of these are virtually identical, except for small variations of detail.
For each of these go to:
https://webarchives.tnm.jp/imgsearch/show/C0066284 (Tokyo National Museum)
https://bunka.nii.ac.jp/heritages/detail/42028 (Kyoto National Museum)
https://collections.artsmia.org/search/Uji (Minneapolis Institute of Arts)
https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/53241 (MET)
For further reading see Miyeko Murase, Japanese Art: Selections from the Mary and Jackson Burke Collection, (The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1975), p. 160-162
This screen would have originally been one of a pair - this being the left-hand screen. The bridge would have continued onto the right-hand screen, sweeping dramatically downwards, with further willow trees either side and a moon to complete the composition. This left screen boldly depicts the bridge, framed by two willow trees left and right. A waterwheel turns in the river, surrounded by stone-filled baskets (jakugo) which protect the river banks from erosion. Irregularly-shaped clouds formed of small pieces of gold leaf pasted onto the gold ground gently conceal elements of the scene from sight. The three-dimensional rendering of the waterwheel and baskets in built-up gesso adds a sense of realism, but also decoration.
This subject must have been extremely popular during the Momoyama and early Edo periods as numerous examples exist today - including in the Tokyo National Museum, the Kyoto National Museum as well as American collections including the Minneapolis Institute of Arts and the Burke Collection in The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Most of these are virtually identical, except for small variations of detail.
For each of these go to:
https://webarchives.tnm.jp/imgsearch/show/C0066284 (Tokyo National Museum)
https://bunka.nii.ac.jp/heritages/detail/42028 (Kyoto National Museum)
https://collections.artsmia.org/search/Uji (Minneapolis Institute of Arts)
https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/53241 (MET)
For further reading see Miyeko Murase, Japanese Art: Selections from the Mary and Jackson Burke Collection, (The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1975), p. 160-162