Itō Jakuchū
The painter of fantastic creatures.
Itō Jakuchū ran a greengrocery before devoting himself to painting. His roosters, fish and flowers are painted with almost unreal precision.
Itō Jakuchū was born in Kyoto in 1716. He was the eldest son of a wholesale greengrocer at the Nishiki market and took over the family business when his father died. According to the sources he was not especially interested in business. He was, however, deeply fascinated by painting and by Zen Buddhism. In 1755, at around 40, he handed the business over to his brother in order to devote himself entirely to art.
Jakuchū first studied the painting of the Kanō school but tired of merely copying. He gained access to Chinese paintings at the Zen temple Shōkoku-ji and copied them, but realised that the most important thing was to study reality. He kept roosters and hens in his garden and observed them for years so that he could paint them.
His principal work is Colourful Realm of Living Beings, a series of 30 large hanging scrolls that he painted over about ten years from the late 1750s. It includes roosters, peacocks, fish, insects, flowers and snow, painted with the most expensive pigments and with almost unreal precision. He donated the series to Shōkoku-ji. In 1889 it was presented to the imperial household and is now in the Imperial Collections in Tokyo, designated a National Treasure.
He also made bold ink paintings and experiments, including screens in which animals are built up from thousands of small squares, as a kind of mosaic. In 1788 a great fire in Kyoto destroyed his home, and he spent his last years near a temple south of the city. He died in 1800.
Jakuchū was long fairly forgotten, but since a major exhibition in Kyoto in 2000 he has become one of the most popular artists in Japan, with long queues for every exhibition. His blend of exact observation, strong colour and imagination appeals to a modern audience.