畊香館畫賸 / Kōkōkan gasho by 瀧和亭 / Taki Katei - 1886

Rarity: Issue of the first edition was announced by Hōbunkan in December 1883. It was published in April 1884. A worldwide institution search finds the British Museum and the National Library of Australia with the only complete first edition sets, outside of China. [An incomplete set is held at the University of Washington, Special Collections.] The first edition is very rarely offered for sale. In 1886 the Tokyo publisher, Ōkura Magobē [1843-1921] purchased the original woodblocks and announced to prospective subscribers he would reissue the work. A worldwide institution search finds six holdings of the second edition in Japan including the Tokyo National Museum and Tohoku University Library. Otherwise, outside of China, the only holding of a complete set of the second edition is at the Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C. The second edition is rarely offered for sale. Offering: The second edition of "Models of Painting from the Kōkōkan" with very good woodblock impressions and the added ephemera printing of the subscriber prospectus. [Kōkōkan was the name of Taki Katei's home with painting studio.] Perhaps the most significant manual of instruction in literati painting styles printed in Japan in the last quarter of the 19th century, the painting manual with 92 pages of texts and 266 prints was woodblock printed in 1886 from the well-preserved original woodblocks purchased from Taki Seiichi. Taki Katei was one of the last of the Japanese Nanga painting masters, acclaimed in Japan and revered among Chinese visitors to Nagasaki, as a master of Chinese styles of painting. Although a frequent contributor to literati publications including books, this is the first woodblock book devoted to his compositions. [Taki Katei was one of fifteen 'renowned masters' in the 1877 "Compendium of Calligraphy and Painting across the Nation".] The set is complete and untouched with the original publisher's wrappers and noble sewn bindings, set in the folding chitsu with title slip, the publishers illustrated broadsheet for prospective subscribers added, laid-in at the rear of volume one. The Painting Manual: While the Edo period is synonymous with sakoku, the national seclusion policy of the Tokugawa shogunate, trade with China at the port city of Nagasaki continued and the shoguns encouraged and patronized Neo-Confucianist and Chinese studies. Many thousands of paintings and books were imported to Nagasaki from Shanghai. Even with the adoption of Western practices and the rapid rise of industrialization that characterized the Meiji period, "Literati culture remained strong until the late 1880s". [Buckland, p. 43]. The painting manual features extensive coverage of Chinese Nanga painting styles, including composition types, drapery styles, and brush strokes. The manual has 265 composition model prints made from designs by Taki Katei after paintings by Chinese masters in Japanese collections. Beginning in 1850 and extending until at least 1866, as a peripatetic artist seeking commissions but devoted to the practice and study of literati painting, Katei made shukusha, accurate reduced-scale copies, of several thousand paintings by Chinese masters, sequestered and largely forgotten in Japanese collections. [Buckland, p. 35] In an advertisement for the instructional manual published in the "Tōyō kaiga sōshi", it is said that Katei revealed, "traces of men from the past hidden away in Japanese collections". In 1879, with earnings from a stream of commissions, Katei purchased a felicitous property in the Ochanomizu neighborhood of Tokyo, on an elevation above the Kanda River, at the secluded northern edge of Tea Valley with fine views of the Sumida River and Mt. Fuji. He had plans drawn up for a house with painting studio and after it was built, he requested a Chinese visitor choose a house name. Perhaps because he was renowned for bird and flower paintings, the visitor chose a fragrance name, Kōkōkan (Hall of Hoeing Fragrance). At Kōkōkan, Katei gave lessons using his celebrated funpon (copybooks) and in his afterword relates that persuaded by students to publish reproductions of his works, he decided to make a literati painting manual as a legacy to teach and advance literati painting styles, focusing primarily on the seminal Chinese masters of the Northern Song dynasty and the Ming dynasty Wu school in Southern China. He devoted a full year to complete selected paintings and their woodblock transfers, preparing and editing texts and documentation with the assistance of his son, Taki Seiichi, as well as, personally supervising in his studio the woodcarving done by an elite crew, headed by the leading wood engravers, Kimura Tokutarō [1842-1906], Mitsui Chōju (Katei's son-in-law) and Kanada Matsukichi. Coverage of the notable Chinese literati masters is extensive. Volume one, Vermilion, demonstrates brush techniques and compositional approaches for twenty landscape types and eighteen drapery styles for figures, (using the 18 arhats as subjects). Volume two, Snow and Volume three, Fragrance demonstrate styles of bird, flower, and animal compositions. Volume four, Place, shows models for landscapes for large, small, and wood panel (ranma) works. Book production was in the Chinese style, woodblock prints and texts impressed on a thinner, longer Chinese style paper,( not the thicker, shorter Washi then in vogue) and bound in plain golden brown wrappers in noble bindings. The Yomiuri shinbon newspaper, in its review, described the manual as, "a beautiful book in the Chinese style". Condition: About Good, very good impressions, no tears, chips, or worming, bindings fine. Sheets: many with light tip bends and fox spots, mostly pale and scattered in margins, some sheets with scattered spots in prints, four prints with considerable foxing, some sheets with slight fingering, a few with slight soiling near a bottom corner, or light woodblock offset, two prints with small stain spots at a margin edge. / Wrappers: Very Good, individual titles neatly added to upper wrapper sides in sumi, two vols. with slight sun fade: upper sides, vol. four with fore-edge bend and a few scattered ink spots: lower sides, slight bottom corner wear, vol. 4 with corner crease. / Folding case: solid and reliable but heavily worn, lacking original bone clasps, title slip soiled. / Broadsheet Ephemera: clean, bright, no tears or chips, top edge wear including corners, some fingering, slight wear to bottom corners, laid-in folded at rear of vol. one with slight crease at foot of one fold. Pagination: Complete; 206 unnumbered sheets (412 pages), the 266 prints and some of the 92 text pages with engraved cinnabar seals, one text page illustrated with a woodblock print portrait of Taki Katei by his son, the 265 prints of composition models in four formats, full-sheet, full-page-vertical format, full-page-horizontal format, and half-page, prints impressed on folded sheets, versos blank, 264 printed in black and white, one printed in gray, black, white + [1] rear blank page, added for the sewn binding + [1], broadsheet, publisher's advertisement for subscribers about the manual, laid-in at the rear of volume one, 14.7 x 9.6 inches, verso blank, printed in b/w, text from type in 18 columns in three parts, illustrated with 4 reproductions, two photo portraits and two paintings. Format: Publisher's untouched kincha (golden brown) wrappers in their kōki toji (noble) bindings, all corners with their kadogire (protective corner backings), set in the publisher's chitsu case (lacking its original two cinches with bone clasps) with the original daisen (printed title slip). Size: Case: 290 x 171 mm (11.42 x 6.73inches) / Covers: 287 x 164 mm (11.3 x 6.5 inches) / Broadsheet: 373 x 243 mm (14.69 x 9.57 inches). Taki Katei [1830-1901]: Born in Sendagaya, outside Tokyo, given name Takimiya ken, his paternal grandfather, Takimiya Heikichi, a rōnin from Hiroshima prefecture. From a young age, he demonstrated a great talent for visual expression. About age eight, he began studies with Satō Suigai, a well-respected local artist, formerly samurai. From 1845, he apprenticed with Suigai's teacher, Ōoka Unpō [1765-1848] who had studied with Suzuki Fuyō, a follower of the Nanpin school. After Unpō's death, Katei was able to study sketching from Nature with the physician-artist, Sakamoto Konen. [The Nanpin school of (kachoga) bird and flower painting, highly influential in Japan, stems from the teaching and works of Shen Quan, the Chinese painter who resided in Nagasaki 1731-33.] In 1850, Katei took to the road as an itinerant artist to study and seek commissions. It is known that first he traveled to Nagasaki where he was accepted as a pupil of the Obaku Zen monk and painter, Hidaka Tetsuo [1791-1871], "one of the three great Nanga masters then living in Nagasaki". [Roberts, p. 171] Katei devoted himself to becoming a master painter, as advocated by the Japanese literati masters, Tani Bunchō and Tsubaki Chinzan, practicing sketching from Nature (shasei) to reveal the resonating spirit of living forms (kiin) that an artist can experience by deep awareness of being and mastery of brush and ink. At age 36, Katei ended his peripatetic lifestyle and returned to Tokyo. [Katei translates as Harmony Pavilion.] He made an excellent marriage, marrying the daughter of a celebrated calligrapher, Takahashi Sekisai [d. 1872] but during the turbulent transition from the Tokugawa shogunate to the imperial Meiji government, he left Tokyo and traveled north to Noda in Chiba prefecture, home of his mother, Kinoko. In Noda, Taki Katei established many enduring connections, resulting in a series of remunerative commissions from the wealthy elite of the city and long term patronage. After returning to Tokyo ca. 1869, he became recognized as a leading literati artist and from the early 1870s, he frequently received commissions from members of the Imperial household. Taki Katei was chosen to represent Japan in the Vienna International Exposition of 1873 (the first international exposition officially participated in by Japan) and subsequent international expositions during his lifetime. In 1879 he was among the first artists appointed by Imperial decree as a member of the Japan Art Association, to promote and protect the arts of Japan. When sections of the Imperial Palace were rebuilt in 1886, he was listed first among twenty two recommended painters working in Chinese painting styles and his beautiful, decorative flower-and-bird paintings, executed on the cedar doors and ceiling of the Residential Hall in the Imperial Palace, demonstrate his mastery of the style associated with the Chinese painting master, Yun Shouping [1633-1690], revered for his ink wash technique with 'boneless' brush that leaves no evident brush strokes. [Roberts, p. 171] In 1893 he was honored with appointment to the Imperial Household Art Committee with the responsibility of overseeing competitions to promote Japanese painting. With recent scholarship on nationalism in Meiji period Japan and reciprocal cultural exchanges with China, there is an upsurge of interest in Taki Katei and his work. An artist known for quietude and finesse with the brush, his legacy and works were all but forgotten for decades, except by a few connoisseurs, for he was a painter associated with the great waning of Chinese cultural influence in Japan and Japan's marked inferiority to the West. Marking the revival of interest in his works, in October 2019, the World Museum in Liverpool will be hosting the first exhibition of Taki Katei's work outside of Japan, as part of the Japan 2020 Cultural Olympiad. Reference: Addiss et al., "The Japanese quest for a new vision: the impact of visiting Chinese painters 1600 to 1900". Buckland, "Painting Nature for the Nation: Taki Katei and the Challenges to Sinophile Culture in Meiji Japan." [Rosina Buckland is the leading contemporary authority on Taki Katei and the painting manual is extensively described, especially in chapter two, pp. 76-81 and in Appendix two.] Campbell, "Tenpō-kizengo no shogakai". Fogel, Joshua, "The Literature of Travel in the Japanese Rediscovery of China". Fogel, editor, "The Role of Japan in Modern Chinese Art". Jungo Murayama , "Taki katei shōden", 編輯兼發行者村山旬吾, 瀧和亭小伝. Mitchell, "The illustrated books of the Nanga, Maruyama, Shijo and other related schools of Japan : a biobibliography.", pp. 87-88, p. 372. [Not noted in Brown or Toda / Ryerson, Mitchell discusses this work at length, although he did not have a copy in his collection.] Roberts, "A Dictionary of Japanese Artists : painting, sculpture, ceramics, prints, lacquer.", p. 171. [The biographical sketch is an essential source on Taki Katei.] Pagination Detail: Volume One: 53 sheets with 34 prints, one b/w portrait print in text, a half-page portrait of Taki Katei by his son, Taki Seiichi [1873-1945],13 full-page portrait prints showing drapery types, using the 18 arhats as models, most with multiple figures, the portrait print on sheet 39, no. 2 in the portraits suite impressed in black, white and gray (the only print not in b/w) and 20 full-page, b/w landscape prints + 31 text pages, 11 with an engraved seal (or seals), (two are title division sheets with collaborator inscriptions) + 42 blank pages + [1], blank page for binding at rear + laid in publisher's broadsheet advertisement for subscribers, text in three parts, illustrated with four captioned b/w reproductions with two portrait bust photos and two paintings, rear side blank. Volume Two: 49 sheets with 73 full-page b/w prints with an engraved seal (or seals) and 18 pages of text, 6 with an engraved seal (or seals) + 7 blank pages. Volume Three: 48 sheets with 74 full-page b/w prints with an engraved seal (or seals) and 16 pages of texts, 9 with an engraved seal (or seals), one page with decorated border + 6 blank pages. Volume Four: 56 sheets with 85 b/w woodblock prints with an engraved seal (or seals) on 34 sheets, illustrations beginning with 2 full sheet prints and also including 45 full page prints, 39 in a horizontal format, and 38 half page prints on 19 sheets + 27 pages of text, 12 with an engraved seal (or seals) including Katei's colophon about the painting manual, and 15 pages of text without seals including 3 pages in a condensed column format + 19 blank pages, extremity blank pages on tissue paper. Contributors to the Painting Manual: There were 38 contributors, one print work (portrait of Katei) and 37 text and calligraphy contributions, (some in bolder stele styles), 15 reprinted from a Katei handscroll made in 1851 that served as an introduction to the artist. All texts by Japanese authors are in kanbun. Volume One: Yu Yue (Quyuan) [1821-1907] scholar-poet living in Suzhou, title page inscription, characters brushed in the Northern Wei stele style with "strokes that emulate the roughened surface of stone" [Buckland, p. 180], Sanjō Sanetomi (Ridō), politician, an accomplished calligrapher, Qian Shaohu, Hua Lanzhi, Yi Li, Lin Menglong, Xi Mei, Yang Youqiao, Ju Youlian, Chen Yizhou, Fu Han [these from 1851], Taki Seiichi (portrait), Shizan dōjin Sekiei (Ishikawa Kōsai) [1884], Takahashi Sekisai, calligrapher and Katei's father-in-law [1871], Kochikuen (Hirano Gogaku) [1879]. Volume Two: He Ruzhang (First Chinese minister to Japan) title page inscription, Wu Gan, Huang Xiquan [1880], Yao Wendong, Iwaya Ichiroku, renowned calligrapher [1884], Jiang Xinyu, Wang Lanting and Dai Chunyuan [these from 1851. Volume Three: Sugi Chōu [1835-1920], calligrapher, title page inscription, Zhang Xiong [1803-1886], painter, Chō Sanshū, renowned calligrapher, Ono Kozan, renowned calligrapher, Kusakabe Meikaku, [these from 1884], Zhou Shaoting, [1851]. Volume Four: Qian Shaohu, title page inscription [1851], Nanma Tsunanori, educator, Konagai Shōshū (Gaku), poet, [these from 1884], Ōnuma Chinzan, poet, important background preface done February 25, 1884, Gu Ziying, Chen Jiren, Dai Laishan, [these from 1851], Ishikawa Kōsai, kanbun author [1879], Takahashi Sekisai, calligrapher, Katei's father-in-law. Additional Images: by request.