Sakai Hōitsu ( ja, 酒井抱一; August 1, 1761 – January 4, 1829) was a Japanese

painter Painting is the practice of applying paint, pigment, color or other medium to a solid surface (called the "matrix" or "support"). The medium is commonly applied to the base with a brush, but other implements, such as knives, sponges, and ...

of the Rinpa school. He is known for having revived the style and popularity of Ogata Kōrin, and for having created a number of reproductions of Kōrin's work.

Biography

Sakai Hōitsu was born on 1 August 1761 in

Edo Edo ( ja, , , "bay-entrance" or "estuary"), also romanized as Jedo, Yedo or Yeddo, is the former name of Tokyo. Edo, formerly a ''jōkamachi'' (castle town) centered on Edo Castle located in Musashi Province, became the ''de facto'' capital of ...

. His father was the lord (''daimyō'') of Himeji Castle in Harima Province. The Sakai daimyō clan originated in

Mikawa Province was an old province in the area that today forms the eastern half of Aichi Prefecture. Nussbaum, Louis-Frédéric. (2005). "''Mikawa''" in . Its abbreviated form name was . Mikawa bordered on Owari, Mino, Shinano, and Tōtōmi Provinces. M ...

. They claim descent from

Minamoto no Arichika was one of the surnames bestowed by the Emperors of Japan upon members of the imperial family who were excluded from the line of succession and demoted into the ranks of the nobility from 1192 to 1333. The practice was most prevalent during the ...

. Arichika had two sons: one of them, Yasuchika, took the name of Matsudaira; and the other son, Chikauji, took the name of Sakai, and this is the ancestor of the Sakai clan. Sakai Hirochika, the son of Chikauji, had two sons as well; and the descendants of these two sons gave rise to the two principal branches of the clan.Papinot, Jacques. (2003)
''Nobiliare du Japon – Sakai''
pp. 50–51; Papinot, Jacques Edmond Joseph. (1906). ''Dictionnaire d’histoire et de géographie du Japon.'' (in French/German). A cadet branch of the Sakai is composed of the descendants of Sakai Masachika, who was a vassal of the Tokugawa – Nobutada, Kiyoyasu et Hirotada. In 1561, Masachika was installed at

Nishio Castle is a Japanese castle located in the city of Nishio, eastern Aichi Prefecture, Japan. At the end of the Edo period, Nishio Castle was home to the Ogyu Matsudaira, ''daimyō'' of Nishio Domain. The castle was also known as , , or . History Nish ...

in Mikawa province, and the security of the castle was confided in him. In 1590, Sakai Shigetada, the son of Masachika, received the domain of Kawagoe in

Musashi Province was a province of Japan, which today comprises Tokyo Metropolis, most of Saitama Prefecture and part of Kanagawa Prefecture. It was sometimes called . The province encompassed Kawasaki and Yokohama. Musashi bordered on Kai, Kōzuke, Sagami ...

(15,000 ''koku''); then in 1601, he was installed at Umayabashi in Kōzuke province (35,000 ''koku'').Papinot
p. 51.
/ref> In 1749, Sakai Tadakiyo (1626–1681) and his descendants were transferred to

Himeji 260px, Himeji City Hall is a city located in Hyōgo Prefecture in the Kansai region of Japan. , the city had an estimated population of 525,682 in 227,099 households and a population density of 980 persons per km². The total area of the city i ...

in Harima Province (150,000 ''koku''); and they remained daimyō at Himeji until the

Meiji period The is an era of Japanese history that extended from October 23, 1868 to July 30, 1912. The Meiji era was the first half of the Empire of Japan, when the Japanese people moved from being an isolated feudal society at risk of colonization ...

. Moving to

Kyoto Kyoto (; Japanese: , ''Kyōto'' ), officially , is the capital city of Kyoto Prefecture in Japan. Located in the Kansai region on the island of Honshu, Kyoto forms a part of the Keihanshin metropolitan area along with Osaka and Kobe. , the ...

, Hōitsu began his studies in art in the

Kanō school The is one of the most famous schools of Japanese painting. The Kanō school of painting was the dominant style of painting from the late 15th century until the Meiji period which began in 1868, by which time the school had divided into many d ...

before moving on to study under

Utagawa Toyoharu Utagawa Toyoharu (歌川豊春, – 1814) was a Japanese artist in the ukiyo-e genre, known as the founder of the Utagawa school and for his ''uki-e'' pictures that incorporated Western-style geometrical perspective to create a sense of ...

of the

ukiyo-e Ukiyo-e is a genre of Japanese art which flourished from the 17th through 19th centuries. Its artists produced woodblock prints and paintings of such subjects as female beauties; kabuki actors and sumo wrestlers; scenes from history and folk ...

style. He later studied under Watanabe Nangaku of the

Maruyama school Maruyama may refer to: * Maruyama (surname), a Japanese surname and list of people with the name * Maruyama, Chiba, a town in Japan * Maruyama Park in Kyoto * Mount Maru (disambiguation), a number of different mountains in Japan * 5147 Maruyama, a ...

and Sō Shiseki of the nanga style before finally becoming a painter of the Rinpa school. SakaiHoitsuAutumnFlowersandMoon

Hōitsu, citing poor health as a reason, became a Buddhist priest in 1797, and spent the last 21 years of his life in seclusion. During this time, he studied the work of Ogata Kōrin extensively, as well as that of Kōrin's brother Ogata Kenzan, and produced a number of reproductions of the brothers' works. He also produced two books of woodblock prints of the brothers' work, as well as one book of his own; these were titled ' (1815), ' (1823), and ' respectively. He died at the age of 66, on 4 January 1829, in

Style

Hōitsu's style shows elements of the realism of ukiyo-e, but resembles particularly the decorative style of Ogata Kōrin, which Hōitsu took major steps to revive. According to critic Robert Hughes, the core achievement in painting during the Edo period was the ''allusive and delicate work of the Rinpa artists;'' and in Hōitsu's large folding screen ''Flowers and Grasses of Summer and Autumn,'' he says, "you can almost feel the wind bending the rhythmical pattern of stems and leaves against their silver ground." In another screen, ''Flowering Plants of Summer,'' Hughes suggested that Hoitsu "possessed epigrammatic powers of observation," as demonstrated in another screen, ''Flowering Plants of Summer,'' in which "the fronds bend and bow under the summer rain, weaving a delicate lattice of green against the now tarnished silver ground." According to scholar Meccarelli the style used for painting vegetation was not faithful to ' or naturalism, but rather retook the ''flora'' and ''fauna'' decorative paintings of Nanpin school.

Works

is a pair of two-folded ''

byōbu are Japanese folding screens made from several joined panels, bearing decorative painting and calligraphy, used to separate interiors and enclose private spaces, among other uses. History are thought to have originated in Han dynast ...

'' folding screens made using ink and color on silver and gold-foiled paper. The work depicts plants and flowers from the autumn and summer seasons, and it is considered one of his best paintings. It was painted on the back of Kōrin's ''Wind God and Thunder God'' screens (show below), that Hōitsu's family owned. The monumental two-sided ''byōbu'' screens became a symbol of the Rinpa tradition, but both sides of the screens have since been separated to protect them from damage. Flowering Plants of Summer and Autumn is a painting on a pair of two-folded '' byōbu'' folding screens by Rinpa artist Sakai Hōitsu depicting plants and flowers from the autumn and summer seasons. Sakai Hōitsu (1761–1828) was a celebrated Japanese painter and an important me ...

Biography

Style

Works

References

External links