Fukuda Kodojin (Seisho, 1865-1944)


Showa era (1926-1989), circa 1926-1944Kakejiku (hanging scroll); ink on paper in silk mounts, depicting an elongated vertical mountain landscape in characteristic Nanga style with a tiny Chinese figure in the foreground looking up toward the peaks, with a Chinese poem, three artist seals including one reading Seisho and a collector's seal reading Shujitsu tada shirakumo kado ni itaru (All day long only white clouds come to my gate), a line from a verse by the Chinese poet Liu Yan (1048-1102); with inscribed tomobako double wooden storage boxes. Overall: 205cm x 50cm (80¾in x 19¾in); image: 137cm x 32.5cm (54in x 12¾in). (3).
|Born in Wakayama Prefecture, Kodojin ('Old Daoist') became extremely accomplished in Chinese verse composition at an early age but switched to haiku for a time after studying with Masaoka Shiki (1867-1902). In the last three decades of his life, he returned to Chinese verse as well as painting landscapes in the Nanga style that have earned him a wide circle of admirers outside Japan in recent years. For English translations of Kodojin's accomplished and imaginative Chinese verse, see Stephen Addiss and Jonathan Chaves, Old Taoist: The Life, Art, and Poetry of Kodojin (1865-1944), New York, Columbia University Press, 2000.