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tokugawa shogunateedo japan

Hasegawa Tohaku — Pine Trees (Shōrin-zu byōbu), c. 1595

Shōrin-zu byōbu (松林図屏風, Pine Trees), c. 1595, by Hasegawa Tohaku (1539–1610). Six-panel folding screen pair; ink on paper; each screen 156 × 347 cm. Tokyo National Museum. The supreme Japanese example of negative space in ink painting, depicting pine trees emerging from morning mist without a single line of colour.

Scholarly Significance

Anchor Momoyama-period Japanese ink painting with Hasegawa Tohaku's Pine Trees — the supreme Japanese example of negative-space atmospheric landscape on folding screens.

Notes

  • ·Designated a National Treasure of Japan (Kokuho).
  • ·The screens depict pine trees in tones from dark ink to near-white, creating an impression of depth, mist, and atmospheric distance.
  • ·Traditionally attributed to the period after the death of Tohaku's son Kyūzo (1593); the grief reading is a later critical construction.
  • ·Unlike the dominant Kano-school style of the period (bold outline and mineral pigment on gold), these screens use pure monochrome ink in the haboku tradition.
  • ·Widely considered the masterpiece of Japanese ink screen painting and a precursor to modern abstraction.