Kamisaka Sekka (1866-1942) Hanging scroll: Waiting by a tree

Hanging scroll, ink, and pigments on paper. 

Painting: 134 by 30,5 cm
Mounts: 200 x 48 cm

This painting represents a man waiting under a dark tree. The composition is extremely simple but suggestive. The artist, with few elements, can, in fact, create a vivid and dynamic scene, based on the tension between the strong ink stain that renders the tree and the elegant figure of the man, dressed in an aristocratic robe.

Painter and designer, Kamisaka Sekka has been one of the most important Japanese artists who brought the traditional aesthetic in the western world. Sekka came from a samurai family - his father was in service at the imperial palace in Kyoto - and studied art during a very delicate period of Japanese history: the transition between the old feudal system of the Edo period to the modern capitalistic one of the Meiji restoration. It has been a traumatic era for all Japanese people and it had relevant effects on artists and their works. In fact, they had to choose between “old” and “new”, between “traditional” and “international”. Sekka chooses the road of national traditions and committed himself in all the fields he could. Under the guide of his teacher Kishi Kokei, he decided to follow the art of the Rinpa School, using plain and simple designs. What immediately appears from Sekka works is the great use of space, a characteristic of whole Japanese art, based on asymmetric but perfectly balanced compositions.