Bunpō gafu sanpen 文鳳画譜三編

FSC-GR-780.280

Commentary by Ellis Tinios

Posted September 5, 2016

Bunpō gafu sanpen (Bunpō gafu, part three) appeared two years after the publication of Bunpō gafu nihen (Bunpō gafu, part two; FSC-GR-780.279.1-2). The respected historian, painter, calligrapher, and sinologue Rai San’yō (1780–1832) provided a preface in the form of a Chinese poem, which he titled “Song on Viewing the Recluse Bunpō’s gafu” 觀文鳳山人画譜歌 (Kan Bunpō sennin gafu uta). He observes that each gafu volume offers something new, praises the fluidity and mastery of Bunpō’s brush, and remarks on the uniqueness of his talent.

The content of part three is more varied than in the first part of Bunpō gafu (1811) and Bunpō gafu nihen (1813), which are also in the Pulverer collection. Double-page images devoted to the usual literati (bunjin) subjects frame two sequences of smaller-scale figures. The first shows thirty-nine of the forty-two literati who the great Chinese calligrapher Wang Xizhi 王羲之 (321–379) invited to a poetry and drinking party that he organized in 353 at the Orchid Pavilion (蘭亭) to celebrate the Spring Purification Festival. They are presented over thirteen pages, and each individual is named. Bunpō sought to differentiate them in terms of expressions, demeanors, and actions. The sequence ends with two pages depicting boy servants filling cups with wine and floating them down the stream that flowed through the grounds of the Orchid Pavilion. The partakers help themselves to the wine cups as they drift past. This subject was popular among Chinese and then Japanese painters. The figures are usually set in an elaborate landscape. Here, Bunpō focuses on the participants to the exclusion of the setting. The next seventeen pages are devoted to Zen parables, a favored subject among Japanese literati painters from the early years of the seventeenth century. There is much variety and humor in these figures and scenes.

After four further double-page images, the book concludes with four complex group scenes: the “Eight Daoist Immortals” (J. hassennin 八僊人; one opening); the “Nine Elders” (J. kyūrōjin 九老人; one opening); a boisterous crowd of men and their boy attendants returning home drunk from the Spring Festival (春社日酔帰家図; two openings); and preparations for and the opening of a “gathering of painting and calligraphy” (shogakai 書画会; four openings). The latter were common in Kyoto in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. In his rendition Bunpō provides an accurate visual record of collecting potential exhibits, the selection committee at work, hanging the selected pieces, and finally the show itself. However, rather than Japanese dress of the period, the participants are depicted in robes of the Chinese Ming dynasty (1368–1644). It is possible that Bunpō wished to emphasize the close link between the Kyoto literati of his day and their Chinese forebears.

The Pulverer copy is a fine early printing.

Selected readings

Louise Norton Brown, Block Printing and Book Illustration in Japan (London: George Routledge and Sons: E. P. Dutton, 1924).

Jack Hillier, The Art of the Japanese Book, 2 vols. (London: Sotheby’s Publications by Philip Wilson Publishers Ltd., 1987), see esp. vol. 2, 686–99.

Jack Hillier, The Uninhibited Brush: Japanese Art in the Shijo Style (London: Hugh M. Moss,1974).

Jack Hillier and Lawrence Smith, Japanese Prints: 300 Years of Albums and Books (London: Trustees of the British Museum, 1980).

Owen E. Holloway, Graphic Art of Japan: The Classical School (London: Alec Tiranti,1957).

C. H. Mitchell, with the assistance of Osamu Ueda, The Illustrated Books of the Nanga, Maruyama, Shijo and Other Related Schools of Japan. A Biobibliography (Los Angeles: Dawson’s Book Shop, 1972).

Kenji Toda, Descriptive Catalogue of the Japanese and Chinese Illustrated Books in the Ryerson Library of the Art Institute of Chicago (Chicago: 1931; repr., Mansfield Centre, CT: Martino Publishing, 2004).

Copies in other collections

Art Institute of Chicago

British Museum, London

Ebi Collection (private) (viewable on online database of the Art Research Center, Ritsumeikan University, Kyoto)
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

Museum Volkenkunde, Leiden

New York Public Library, New York

Victoria and Albert Museum, London