Hanging Scroll 'Moon' by Keinen IMAO

A full moon, left in the bare paper, rises through soft grey ink wash. Above, clouds built up in pale, layered washes veil the upper edge of the disc. Below, low horizontal strokes suggest drifting mist, so the moon seems to hover between cloud and haze. The moon has no outline: it exists only as an untouched circle within graded ink, and that restraint gives the painting its luminosity. The scroll is mounted with gold-brocaded silk borders and grey marbled paper, with dark wooden roller ends. It comes with its tomobako. The outside of the lid is inscribed Tsuki (Moon), and the inside is signed Keinen ga with a seal.

IMAO Keinen was born in Kyoto in 1845. He first studied ukiyo-e style with UMEGAWA Tokyo, and later became a pupil of SUZUKI Hyakunen, through whom he absorbed the sketching style of the Maruyama and Shijo schools. He became one of the leading painters of the Kyoto school in the Meiji and Taisho eras, widely admired at exhibitions in Japan and abroad for vivid, finely detailed bird-and-flower paintings based on sketching from life. He taught at the Kyoto Prefectural School of Painting, and his woodblockprinted album Keinen kacho gafu remains his best-known publication. In 1904 he was appointed Teishitsu Gigeiin (Artist to the Imperial Household), in 1907 he served as a juror for the first Bunten, and in 1919 he became a member of the Imperial Art Academy. Among his many pupils were his son IMAO Keisho (1902–1993) and KONOSHIMA Okoku (1877–1938).

Compare: • IMAO Keinen, Hazy Moon Behind a Pine, 1912, hanging scroll, ink on silk, Tokyo National Museum (A-858), gift of the artist • Attributed to IMAO Keinen, Bush Clover and Full Moon, hanging scroll, ink and color on silk, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (36.100.38) • IMAO Keinen, Pines, Waves, and Mountains, 1916, hanging scroll, ink and color on silk, Princeton University Art Museum (2017-8)

Condition: Very good; minor creasing.