Landscape after Huang Gongwang and Dong Qichang, Yi Fujiu

Exhibition Label: “From the Way of Writing to the Weight of Writing," Jun-2007, Ai-lian Liu "All the birds fly high and disappear in the distance. The solitary cloud stays and saunters in his leisure. Never tired of looking at each other, He and the Jingting Mountain." -Li Bai (701-762), Solitary Retreat in the Jingting Mountain Yi Fujiu was a Chinese merchant who made a series of journeys to Nagasaki, Japan, between 1720 and 1747. While Japanese contact with the mainland was otherwise restricted during the Edo period (1600-1868), Chinese merchants and monks became envoys of Chinese culture in Japan. Although not a major artist of his time, Yi Fujiu’s landscape painting preserved the earlier Yuan (1279-1368) tradition, and was highly regarded by Japanese Nanga painters as representative of the orthodox literati tradition. Subsequently, his calligraphy has also been treasured by Japanese intellectuals. Exhibition Label: “Transformations,” Feb-2006, Mary Dusenbury and Alison Miller Throughout the centuries the styles of mountain-water landscapes changed. Painters looked to earlier painters and quoted their styles, layering additional meanings onto paintings already rich in associations. Yi Fujiu was a merchant and minor Chinese poet and painter whose influence on the development of Japanese literati painting (bunjinga) was out of proportion to his significance in his own country. Japanese literati (literally - those who are literate) were eager for information about the Chinese literati poetry and painting tradition, and even minor works in this major tradition inspired an outburst of creative endeavor in 18th century Japan. The inscription reads: Clouds and streams stretch pure and free of sand, A gate faces the blue mountains-this is my home. I enter the pavilion having been gone for two days, The east wind has already opened the purple wisteria. Archive label 2003 (version 1): A native of Suzhou, a cultural center and commercial port in the southeastern province of Jiangsu, Yi Fujiu (Japanese: I Fukyu-) was a ship owner and merchant who made a series of trading voyages to Nagasaki between 1720 and1747. Although he was not a major artist, Yi Fujiu embodied in his landscapes the “bland” and restrained poetic spirit of the Chinese Yuan dynasty (1271-1368) masters and offered Japanese artists and intellectuals a model of Chinese literati style. His works were greatly admired in Japan and influenced generations of Japanese literati artists throughout the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Conservative artists copied his works with little modification, while more innovative painters, such as Ike Taiga, Kameda Bo-sai, and Uragami Gyokudo- (see paintings to the right), transformed the restrained idiom of Yi Fujiu into lively and eccentric landscapes. In Return to My Mountain Home, Yi Fujiu combined painting, poetry and calligraphy to express his delight at returning to a serene mountain home. The inscription reads: Clouds and streams stretch pure and free of sand, A gate faces the blue mountains-this is my home. I enter the pavilion having been gone for two days, The east wind has already opened the purple wisteria blossoms. Archive Label 2003 (version 2); A Chinese scholar working in Japan, Yi Fujiu helped transmit Chinese painting tradition to Japanese artists who were constantly searching for Chinese models. In this painting, Yi Fujiu uses some of the Chinese literati painting elements to represent a scholar's joy over the coming of spring, represented by the blossoming of the purple wisteria. The slanting dots used to accent tree foliage and the pastel washes used to model landscape forms are typical features of the literati style painting, especially that of the Yuan Dynasty (1206-1368). The inscription reflects the soft lyricism of the painting: Along the Cloudy Stream, it is pure and free of sand A gate that faces the blue mountains--this is my home. I enter the pavilion after two days' absence, (To find that) the purple wisteria has bloomed in the east wind.