Shazanrō gahon

FSC-GR-780.602

Commentary by Frank L. Chance

Posted August 2, 2016

Shazanrō gahon (Picture book of the mountain-reflecting pavilion) is the most beautiful of the dozen or so titles designed by Tani Bunchō. It takes its name from the artist’s sobriquet “Shazanrō,” which reminds us how fond he was of painting peaks and that the upper floor of his studio in Edo featured a fine outlook on Mount Fuji.

Gahon (画本), which is sometimes read ehon, simply means “picture book.” The volume includes a three-page text by Bunchō, divided between the beginning and the ending papers in this edition, and a calligraphic frontispiece also thought to be by his hand. Despite the landscape evocation of the name, the volume consists of twenty illustrations of plants, birds, bugs, and even a crab. One of its most unusual images depicts ten spiders, rendered as if floating against a pale yellow sunset sky; the accompanying classical Chinese inscription indicates that they are auspicious portents.

The majority of the subjects are more traditional, including literati favorites such as bamboo, plum, and chrysanthemum, as well as showy lily and narcissus blossoms. Seven of the openings include poetic inscriptions, and almost all bear one or more of Bunchō’s seals printed in red ink. Shazanrō gahon combines the literati refinement embodied in allusive titles and poetic descriptions with forthright, sometimes quite decorative, natural forms that attract the viewer with brilliant color or high contrast monochrome, with clear and controlled draftsmanship, and with a bold but never excessive design sense.

The Pulverer volume is in very good condition, with no vermicular trails and only minor rubbing on the bottom corner of most pages. A comparison with the copy in the British Museum and the example donated by the Burke Foundation to the Minneapolis Institute of Art in 2015 reveals a slight fading of color in the Pulverer volume. In the Pulverer copy and in many others there is some bleeding of ink between adjacent pages. This is especially visible in the first (blank) page of the volume. The Pulverer impression also has the seal of publisher Izumiya Shōjirō, which is not found in copies in the British Museum or the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Selected readings

Frank L. Chance, “Tani Bunchō,” in Grove Art Online (http://www.oxfordartonline.com/subscriber/article/grove/art/T083257).

Nakata Katsunosuke 仲田勝之助, Ehon no kenkyū 『絵本の研究』 (Tokyo: Bijutsu Shuppansha, 1950).

Timon Screech, The Shogun's Painted Culture: Fear and Creativity in the Japanese States, 1760–1829 (London: Reaktion Books, 2000).

Tani Bunchō 谷文晁, (Nihon) Meizan zue 『(日本) 名山図絵』 (Tokyo: Kokusho Kankōkai, 1970), esp. the afterword by Higuchi Hideo 樋口秀雄, “Bunchō no gafu obogaki” 「谷文晁の画譜覚書」, unpaginated.

Copies in other collections

British Museum, London

Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

Minneapolis Institute of Art

Museum of Fine Arts, Boston

Shazanrō ehon