Taigadō gafu 大雅堂画譜
FSC-GR-780.103

Commentary by Itō Shiori
Posted April 26, 2017
Original unedited text in Japanese follows

Geppō Shinryō was a monk-painter at the Sōrin Temple (Sōrinji双林寺) in Kyoto. He copied the picture scroll Kikyō Unen gakan 寄興雲烟画巻 by the literati (nanga or bunjinga) artist Ike Taiga for Taigadō gafu (Taigadō’s picture album), which appears to have been privately published. [1] Itō Tōshō wrote a postscript in the eighth month of 1803 (Kyōwa 3); the preface by the Confucian scholar Murase Kōtei, Taiga’s poetry inscriptions, and Shinryō’s postscript were added in the eleventh month, and a postscript by the literati artist Minagawa Kien in the twelfth. The themes of the Taiga poems were drawn from the original pictures.

Perhaps this album was published to serve as a manual or copybook (edehon) since the original images also contained elements compatible with edehon such as landscapes, trees and stones, and human figures. The compositions were modified slightly for publication such that each image corresponds to the double-page opening. In his postscript Kien comments on the history behind the book’s publication and the particulars relating to the blocks:

Some of the writings (calligraphy) and pictures that Taiga left behind in order to pay for the living expenses of his wife [Ike] Gyokuran [池玉瀾; 1727/28–1784] in old age survived even after Gyokuran’s death. Taiga’s students sold these works and erected the Taigadō 大雅堂 near Sōrinji in his honor. One of his students, Aoki Shukuya (青木夙夜) [d. 1802], served as the Taigadō’s first keeper, and following Shakuya’s death, Geppō became the keeper. The woodblocks Geppō used for this illustrated book are considered the property of the Taigadō.

This passage indicates that the operating costs of the building were underwritten, at least in part, by the revenue derived from the ownership of the Taigadō blocks.

Taiga based his painting style on Chinese illustrated books such as Bazhong huapu (J. Hasshu gafu; Primer on eight varieties of painting, 1621–1626). All of Taiga’s illustrated books, including Taigadō gafu and Taigadō gahō (FSC-GR-780.105.1-3), are posthumous publications. It is intriguing that established Taiga paintings, themselves based on painting manuals (gafu), were in turn reproduced as printed painting manuals (gafu). This served to disseminate the artist’s painting style.

The publication date of the Pulverer copy of the Taigadō gafu is recorded as the third month of 1804 (Bunka 1), one year after the compilation of the preface and postscripts. Taigadō gahō was published and sold by Hayashi Kihē 林喜兵衛(Bunkyōdō 文暁堂) and Kikuya Tahē (菊舎太兵衛). There appears to be two documented versions: one with and without a colophon from 1804 and another that appears to be a private printing from 1803. Compared with the 1803 printing, there are no visible differences in the black sumi ink in either the color blocks or the keyblock (omohan) for the 1804 printing; this suggests that the blocks from the 1803 copy were reused for the 1804 copy. The project as a whole indicates that the purpose was to reproduce the images as close as possible to the original paintings.

[1] This scroll, which dates to c. 1765, is today housed in the Eisei Bunkoin Tokyo.

書名　大雅堂画譜

執筆者伊藤紫織

池大雅の画巻「寄興雲烟図巻」（永青文庫）を本書の跋文を書いている月峯辰亮（1760–1839）が写し、私家版として刊行したとみられる。享和3年（1803）11月の村瀬栲亭の序、大雅の題詩、辰亮の跋、同年8月の伊藤東所の跋、同年12月の皆川淇園の跋を伴う。大雅の題詩は原画にあったもの。画譜は絵手本としての用途を見込んで刊行されたのだろうが、原画も山水、樹石、人物の絵手本的要素を持っていた。刊行にあたり見開きごとに一画面となるよう位置関係を少し修正している。出版と蔵版の経緯について、淇園の跋は「妻玉瀾の老後の生活費に充てるために大雅が残した書画が玉瀾死後も残っていた。大雅の門人たちはその書画を売って大雅を顕彰する大雅堂を双林寺のそばに建設し、門人の一人青木夙夜（？–1789）を最初の堂守とした。夙夜没後、月峯が堂守となり、月峯が写したこの画譜の板木を大雅堂のものとする」と伝える。大雅堂の蔵版として運営費の足しとなるようにしたのであろう。

大雅は中国の画譜『八種画譜』等に倣って画風を確立した。本タイトルの他、『大雅堂画法』を含め大雅の画譜は没後の出版であるが、画譜によって確立した大雅の絵がまた画譜として出版され、その画風が広まっていくのは興味深い。序、跋にある享和3年の翌年、文化元年（1804）3月の刊記を伴って、京都の林喜兵衛、菊舎太兵衛から売品として出版された。享和3年版と思われる本どうしを比較しても色版や主版でない墨に差異が認められるのは、本画の再現を意識して個別に仕上げが行われたものだろう。

Selected readings
Felice Fischer with Kyoko Kinoshita, Ike Taiga and Tokuyama Gyokuran: Japanese Masters of the Brush (Philadelphia: Philadelphia Museum of Art, 2007), 438.

Jack Hillier, The Art of the Japanese Book, 2 vols. (London: Sotheby’s Publications by Philip Wilson Publishers Ltd., 1987), esp. vol. 2, 627–30.

Roger S. Keyes, Ehon: The Artist and the Book in Japan (New York: New York Public Library; Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2006), 279–80.

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), 509–10.

Nakano Mitsutoshi 中野三敏 and Kikutake Jun’ichi 菊竹淳一, eds., Taiga no gafu 「大雅の画譜」, Aimi Kōu shū 『相見香雨』, vol. 2 (1986), Nihon shoshigaku taikei 45 『日本書誌学大系45』 (Musashimurayama-shi: Seishōdō, 1985–1998), 201–06.

Mori Senzō 森銑三, Ike no Taiga 「池大雅」, vol. 3, Mori Senzō chosakushū 『森銑三著作集』 (Tokyo: Chūō Kōronsha, 1971), 25–26, 41–44.

Copies in other collections:
Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney
Bibliothèque nationale de France, Paris
British Museum, London
Chiba City Museum of Art
Eisei Bunko, Tokyo
Harvard University Art Museums, Arthur-Sackler Gallery
National Diet Library, Tokyo
New York Public Library
Tenri University, Tenri Central Library
Tokyo National Museum
Tokyo University of the Arts, University Library
Tokyo Metropolitan Central Library
Waseda University Library