Bunpō kanga 文鳳漢画

FSC-GR-780.277

Commentary by Ellis Tinios

Posted August 11, 2016

Bunpō kanga (Bunpō’s Chinese drawings) is Kawamura Bunpō’s second solo book. It is identical in size and format to Bunpō’s first solo publication from 1800, Bunpō soga 文鳳麁画 (FSC-GR-780.287). Whereas Bunpō soga was devoted to the portrayal of the people of Japan, Bunpō kanga concentrates on Chinese drawn from myth, history, and literature as well as the stock imagery of scholars with their boy servants, peasants, and fishermen who inhabit Chinese literati paintings (bunjinga 文人画). Each individual or group is identified by name.

The author of the preface, Fujiwara no Ason Toshimitsu (dates unknown), praises the variety and expressiveness of the hundreds of figures in Bunpō’s book. He also stresses that the book’s primary purpose was not to be visually pleasing but to provide Japanese artists with models. The book is a guide to the iconography of the subjects depicted by Bunpō and other Japanese artists working in what was then regarded as a Chinese idiom.

Yoshidaya Shinbē (Bunchōdō), one of the most important publishers active in Kyoto in the first quarter of the nineteenth century, commissioned and released Bunpō kanga. He played an active role in the literary and artistic life of the city, developing a close relationship with Bunpō and issuing five more books by the artist. He listed Bunpō’s titles at the head of his multi-page descriptive catalogs (zōhan mokuroku 蔵板目録) bound in at the end of many of his publications.

Bunpō kanga opens with an image of Guo Ziyi 郭子儀 (697–781), a successful Tang-dynasty official who rejoiced in many sons and even more grandsons. This portrait shows him surrounded by a dozen of his grandsons and is an apt introduction to the multitude of Chinese figures that fill the following pages.

Bunpō illustrates approximately one hundred sixty named men and twenty named women drawn from all but the most recent period of Chinese history. Among them are immortals, sages, emperors, noted concubines, goddesses, poets, drunkards, philosophers, historians, great ministers of state, the “Twenty-four Paragons of Filial Piety” (J. nijūshi kō 廾四考), and noted calligraphers. In addition, he depicts groups, such as the “Seven Worthies” (J. shin shichiken 晋七賢) and the “One Hundred Elders” (J. hyaku rō 百老), who are not identified individually. The artist presents anonymous figures engaged in named activities, including fishing, drinking tea, or pursuing the “Four Accomplishments” (J. kin-ki-sho-ga 琴碁書畫) of the cultivated gentleman (calligraphy, music, painting, and go). His debt to the first part of the Chinese Jiezhiyuan hua zhuan 芥子園畫傳 (J. Kaishien gadan; The mustard seed garden manual of painting; 1679) is particularly evident in these pages.

Bunpō kanga encompasses all of the Chinese subjects found in Bunpō’s paintings and in his three Bunpō gafu volumes; all of these book titles are in the Pulverer collection. Bunpō’s figures are based on imagery encountered in imported Chinese books and paintings. For this writer, they lack the vitality of those in Bunpō soga, which seem to have been based on direct and sympathetic observation of life around him. Bunpō kanga is the only commercially issued Bunpō book not to have been reprinted throughout the nineteenth century.

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, 1987), see esp. vol. 2, 686–99.

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)

Museum Volkenkunde, Leiden

New York Public Library, New York

Victoria and Albert Museum, London