Reverberations of Taiga, Volume 2 (leaf 25)

From the museum

Aoki Shukuya was a top student of painter Ike Taiga and took responsibility for Taiga’s stylistic legacy. A painting album by Taiga, part of which survives today in Kyoto in hanging scroll format, served as the source for this painting by Shukuya and the matching designs from a set of wood-block–printed volumes published in 1804. The postscript to the books, written and carved by the scholar Minagawa Kien (皆川淇園) (1735–1807), explains that Taiga produced the original album for his wife and fellow painter Tokuyama Gyokuran (徳山玉瀾) (1727/28–1784). The final design in the first volume of the books and Shukuya’s corresponding painting include the text “viewing the moon from a river pavilion” (江楼賞月). The scene alludes to a poem by Tang dynasty (618–907) poet Zhao Gu (趙嘏) (Chinese, active mid-800s). In the poem, a person gazes at the moon from a riverside pavilion and reflects on the absence of a companion who had admired it with him at the same place the year before. Traditionally, young painters in Japan began their studies with an established master painter. The master's compositions invariably became models that the apprentice copied to learn various ink and brush techniques.