Kyōchūzan 胸中山

FSC-GR-780.138

Commentary by Tamaki Maeda

Posted December 3, 2017

The title Kyōchūzan (胸中山), or “Mountains of the Heart,” alludes to the literati ideal of a gentleman beholding hills and valleys in his mind’s eye, distancing himself from mundane concerns. [1] This concept was essential to the development of landscape painting in China, and Kameda Bōsai, a free-spirited scholar-artist, was keenly aware of it.

Born into a merchant family in Edo, Bōsai studied with Inoue Kinga 井上金峨 (1732–1784), who promoted an eclectic form of Confucianism called setchūgaku 折衷学. At the age of twenty-two, Bōsai opened a private school, and, for the next two decades, taught many students who later became cultural notables, including the novelist Takizawa (Kyokutei) Bakin 滝沢 (曲亭) 馬琴 (1767–1848) and calligrapher Maki Ryōko 巻菱湖 (1777–1843). When the government issued the 1790 Kansei Edict to enforce the rigid Zhu Xi doctrines of Confucianism as the official school of learning, Bōsai was a fierce opponent. He was branded as one of the “Five Heterodox Teachers,” lost his students, and subsequently closed down his school. For a dozen years, Bōsai led the life of an itinerant literatus, brushing poems, paintings, and calligraphy pieces, in exchange for shelter, meals, and sake. Mountains of the Heart was published a year after he resettled in Edo. It is filled with casual yet deeply compelling images, which recall a poem by the artist:

My painting from its inception has had no method,

How can it be appreciated in this world?

Merely showing a calm and relaxed felling,

It depicts the mountains of my heart. [2]

On the fifteenth day of the third month of 1816, Bōsai attended a party featuring ink-stick presentation. Tempted by a rare stick made by the renowned ink-maker Fang Yulu 方于魯 (act. 1570–1619), Bōsai, characteristically intoxicated, brushed all twenty-nine landscape paintings soon to be published in Mountains of the Heart. Having recounted the event in his postscript, Bōsai, characteristically humble, concludes: “When I saw them [made into prints], at first I was startled, and did not recognize them; after all, they were playful inkwork, clumsy and muddled, done while drunk! It serves only to burden me with yet another cause of shame!” [3]

Bōsai’s modest remark on his drawings aside, the book is widely considered a tour de force of woodblock publication. Mountains of the Heart belongs to the trilogy of picture-books published by Bōsai’s friend Matsuzawa Rōsen 松沢老泉 (Izumiya Shōjirō 和泉屋庄次郎II, 1769–1822) (Setsubaku Shobō 屑麥書房), along with Shazanrō ehon (FSC-GR-780.602) by Tani Bunchō 谷文晁 (1763–1840)and Ōson gafu by Sakai Hōitsu 酒井抱一 (1761–1828) (FSC-GR-780.516).

Mountains of the Heart demonstrates Rōsen’s careful attention in book production. Of the three editions in the Pulverer collection, FSC-GR-780.137 appears to be the oldest and was probably published by Rōsen himself. In the aforementioned party, the publisher apparently prepared ahead a bundle of textured paper with printed borders indicating a book format. [4] Bōsai, as so happened, produced some images for double-page openings, such as “Waiting for Fish in the Green Verdure” (e.g., pp. 10–11 on the website). [5] As shown in the printed version Bōsai made ink marks going across the borderlines. [6] Such a faithful reproduction was possible because Rōsen worked with craftsmen with extraordinary skills, including the block-carver Asakura Hachiemon (朝倉八右衛門). Images such as “Distant Mountains and Broad Bay” (pp. 6–7 on the website), another double-page opening, capture Bōsai’s masterful brushwork: dry lines done with the flying-white (split brush hair) technique for the rocks on the right; wet, bleeding lines for the boats on the left; and subtle gray wash for the distant mountains. Laid on slightly textured paper, colors and gray ink in this book often appear powdery, adding atmospheric effects.

After Rōsen died in 1822, Suharaya Shinbē 須原屋新兵衛 (Sūzanbō 崇山房) acquired the woodblocks; he also obtained the publisher’s copy of the first edition. [7] Suharaya published the second oldest copy in the Pulverer collection (FSC-GR-780.136). This version is printed with a brighter palette, which adds a cheerful feeling but detracts from the hint of pungency expressed in images like the aforementioned “Waiting for Fish in the Green Verdure.” Some compositions are altered as well. Compare, for example, “Blue-Green Dripping after Rain” inthe oldest Pulverer copy (FSC-GR-780.137) and the same image in the second copy (FSC-GR-780.136) (pp. 33, in both cases). The older version shows gentle, round hills in distance, while the second version, uneven, rockier mountains. Yet, given that Suharaya had the original copy of the first edition, his publication presumably offers images closer to Bōsai’s original paintings. To complicate matters further, Bōsai made some corrections to the first edition, and Rōsen subsequently published at least one more edition with the adjustments. All things considered, it is likely that the oldest Pulverer example (FSC-GR-780.137) was not the original but a later edition published by Rōsen.

The third example in the Pulverer collection (FSC-GR-780.138) is a replica of a Rōsen edition; his publisher’s name Izumiya Shōjirō is shown in the last page. Significantly smaller in size, this pocket edition appears to be a modern production, pointing to the continuing appeal of Bōsai’s work well beyond the Edo period, even to this day. [8]

Selected readings:
Stephen Addiss, The World of Kameda Bōsai: The Calligraphy, Poetry, Painting, and Artistic Circle of a Japanese Literatus (New Orleans: New Orleans Museum of Art, 1984).

Kameda Bōsai and Stephen Addiss, Mountains of the Heart (New York: G. Braziller, 2007).

Jack Hillier, The Art of the Japanese Book, 2 vols. (London: Sotheby’s Publications by Philip Wilson Publishers Ltd., 1987), see esp. vol. 2, 640–43.

Roger S. Keyes, Ehon: The Artist and the Book in Japan (The New York Public Library in association with the University of Washington Press, 2006), 196-197.

Copies in other collections:

British Museum, London

Freer | Sackler Library, Washington DC

Kyushu University Library, Fukuoka

Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

National Diet Library, Tokyo

New York Public Library

Princeton University Library

Tōyō Bunko, Tokyo

Waseda University Library, Tokyo

Yale University Library, New Haven

[1] The phrase kyōchūzan, or “mountains of the heart,” may have been derived from xiongzhongqiuhe 胸中丘壑 (J: kyōchū kyūgaku) or “hills and valleys of the heart,” which refersto the literati ideal mentioned here. It was a well-known concept among the circle of Song-dynasty (960–1279) scholars, including the poet-artist Su Shi 蘇軾 (1037–1011) and Huang Tingjian 黃庭堅 (1045–1105). Their literary work was vastly popular among Edo period intellectuals.

[2] Translated by Stephen Addiss, in Bōsai and Addiss 2007,12.

[3] [ ] is my addition. Translated by Jonathan Chaves, in Bōsai and Addiss 2007, 11.

[4] Keyes 2006, 196.

[5] The titles of all the images in Mountains of the Heart are translated in Bōsai and Addiss 2007, 59–117. I use the translated titles that appear there.

[6] Keyes 2006, 196.

[7] Ibid.

[8] Bōsai’s Mountains of the Heart was republished periodically at least until 1982 in Japan. The latest reproduction was released, with an English introduction and commentaries, in Bōsai and Addis 2007.