Japanese folding screens are able to articulate complex visions across their multi-paneled surfaces, intentionally distorting time and space and collapsing distinctions between the real and the fantastical. Ink painted landscape screens such as these evoke an imagined version of China, with vertiginous cliffs, deep valleys, vast lakes, and isolated retreats for learned scholars. Read from right to left, the seasonality depicted across the pictorial space of both screens shifts from a verdant spring and summer rains (right screen), to a tranquil autumn and the snow covered hills of winter (left screen).
In some cases, such screens evoked specific places, such as West Lake (西湖 Ch. Xīhú, Jp. Seiko), or followed conventionalized templates like the Eight Views of the Xiao and Xiang Rivers (瀟湘八景 Ch. Xiāoxiāng bājǐng, Jp. Shōshō hakkei). In other cases, such as here, the view presented is more generic, incorporating different landscape elements and Chinese-style architecture to create a balanced composition, conventionally with larger landscape motifs at the outer extremes of the total painted vista and a flatter expanse in the center. When folding screens are displayed, the panels either recede from or come towards the viewer, uniquely creating complex sense of spatial depth that animates the depicted motifs. During the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, ink landscape screens were most often commissioned and owned by members of the ruling military class, and primarilyy made by artists from the dominant Kano school (Kano-ha 狩野派)—a network of ateliers who served as official painters to Japan’s regional warlords. However, in the wake of the Kano’s artistic dominance, two other painting schools arose in the late sixteenth century—the Unkoku and the Hasegawa—claiming adherence to the standards of and artistic descent from the legendary Japanese ink painter Sesshū Tōyō 雪舟等楊 (c. 1420–1506).
Sesshū had spent two years in China as part of a diplomatic mission, studying paintings by Song and Yuan period masters and returning with the rare pedigree of direct experience of painting conventions on the continent. The painter of the Bedell screens, Unkoku Tōtetsu, was the third son of the painter Unkoku Tōeki 雲谷等益 (1591–1644), and thereby the grandson of the founder of the Unkoku school, Unkoku Tōgan 雲谷等顔 (1547–1618). Tōgan served as a retainer of the Mōri clan (Mōri-shi 毛利氏), in what is now Yamaguchi prefecture in Western Japan. He had initially studied Kano school painting in Kyoto, however, his patron, the daimyo Mōri Terumoto 毛利輝元 (1553-1625) had requested that he make a copy of an important scroll by Sesshū in the family’s collection, the Long Landscape Scroll (Sansui chōkan 山水長巻)of 1486 (fig. 1a-b), which shows a long continuous landscape transitioning through the four seasons, and is considered to be a distillation of Sesshū’s techniques and compositional models.Tōgan was able to study directly from the scroll, carefully copying it and adding an inscription to the original in 1593. The Mōri were so pleased by Tōgan’s work that they permitted him the use of Sesshū’s former studio-residence, the Unkokuan 雲谷庵, at the Unkoku monastery in Suō周防 province (now Yamaguchi prefecture), which lay within their borders.
Although Tōgan had previously used the name Hara Jihei 原治兵衛, he now adopted the name of Sesshū’s studio, founding the Unkoku school. He also assumed the art name “Tōgan” using the “tō 等” character adopted from Sesshū’s name “Tōyō 等楊.” Thereafter, Tōgan closely aligned himself with Sesshū’s brushwork styles and themes, incorporating “grandson of Sesshū” into his signatures. Like the Kano, artists of the Unkoku school depicted a variety of subjects, including animals, bird-and-flower designs, and landscapes. However, the Unkoku’s most important achievement is widely considered to be large screens with Chinese landscapes, such as these screens. This subject is most seen as an expression of respect for scholarly pursuits, a refined rusticity, reclusion, and an appreciation of nature.
Of his sons and pupils, Unkoku Tōgan’s son Tōeki was the most successful, collaborating with his father on several projects in Kyoto and Yamaguchi and signing himself “the fourth generation Sesshū.” Tōeki became the official painter to the Mōri clan after his father’s death, and like his father, was also awarded the court-recognized title of “Bridge of the Dharma (Hokkyō 法橋). Comparatively little is known about his son, Tōtetsu, the artist of the Bedell screens. Like his father and grandfather, Tōtetsu explicitly claimed descent from Sesshū, evidenced here in his signature on the right screen (fig. 2). Tōtetsu is known to have used the art name Sangen 三玄, and to have served the Hagi clan in Nagato, present day Yamaguchi prefecture. He did not receive the same court accolades as his predecessors, and for reasons currently unknown, he was was ordered to be confined in 1683, and died of an illness on the ninth day of the sixth lunar month of that same year, aged 53. The signature on the left screen is damaged and partially illegible, but curiously seems to suggest he was 87 years old when he completed the screen. However, this signature is prefaced by the term “gyōnen 行年,” usually used by Kano school after they had reached the age of 60. Other artists, such as Soga Shōhaku 曾我蕭白 (1730–1781), used this term before that age, which may suggest an similarly unorthodox approach to self-fashioning in this instance.
The Bedell screens exhibit instances of the more formalized, mannered inkwork that characterize later generations of the Unkoku school, due to their replication of existing compositional models that ultimately led to the stagnation of the school. However, there are also passages that reflect a more indivualized approach by Tōtetsu, and a pleasantly surprising amount of color despite the overall monochrome ink palette, with subtle pink cherry blossoms for spring on the right screen and red-tinted autumn foliage on the left. There is a significant amount of blue pigment used to ornament passages of water, a trait seen in many landscape screens by Tōtetsu’s father, Tōeki (fig. 3). The addition of gold dust, sunago 砂子, some of which may have been a later addition, further enlivens the surface. It is at present unclear whether Tōtetsu followed the compostion of an existing pair or screens or developed his own composition for this work. In its distribution of landscape motifs, with a waterfall on the right screen and a bay with distant mountains on the left, the screens resemble a pair by Sesson Shūkei 雪村周継 (c. 1490–c. 1589), another influential figure in the history of Japanese ink painting, whose works are also often considered in relation to Sesshū’s (fig. 4). However, the Bedell screens have a more conventional, gradual transition from the larger landscape forms at either end to the watery expanse in the middle.
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