National Treasures & Important Cultural Properties
of National Institutes for Cultural Heritage, Japan

Sakaki Hyakusen (1687–1752) is a painter of nanga (southern painting, a style of Chinese painting developed in Japan) and a haiku poet from the middle Edo period. He studied paintings and picture books from the Ming and Ching dynasties, and became a pioneer of Japanese nanga. Influences from Sei Moyou and other Soshū-school painters from the late Ming period are conspicuous in his landscapes. This folding screen is Hyakusen's most important work; the pale sumi black and bright, light colors ingeniously express the soft light that embraces everything, even the steep mountains and the large river. The seal on the left screen reads "In the middle of spring in Teibou (name of the year), followed the style of Tou Hakuko," and the one on the right screen reads "imitated the style of Sei Moyou." In addition to these two painters, the composition is based on Shou Unjū's Taihei Sansui-zu (Peaceful Landscape, picture book) or Kaishien Gaden (Picture Story of the Kaishi Garden), which quotes the pictures in the former. The motifs and style are painted after the model of Sei Moyou's paintings, including Rantei Gakai Zukan (Pictures of an Elegant Party at Rantei) and Tenchi Sekihekizu (Stone Wall at Heaven's Pond). The scene of the picture is painted as a utopia suitable for intellectuals to gather and enjoy themselves.