Spring Forest and Distant Peaks (春林遠岫) by NAKABAYASHI CHIKUTŌ 中林竹洞 

Edo period (1615-1868), 1844

This Yokomono Kakejiku (横 物 掛 け 軸, horizontal hanging scroll) depicts a tranquil landscape in a valley surrounded by mountains. Executed in ink and colour on silk, this work illustrates the precise, expressive brushwork for which Chikutō was renowned. The subtle pastels and hazy atmosphere of the painting anticipates a fresh, early spring day. In the foreground, an idyllic lakeside pavilion is sheltered by a copse of trees, whose slender, curved trunks Chikutō has carefully recorded in characterful strokes. This modest retreat suggests a scholar’s withdrawal from worldly concerns and echoes themes of personal cultivation common in Chinese literati tradition, which influenced Chikutō’s work. Past the ravine suggested by the central expanse of blank silk, rocky mountains emerge. In literati thought, mountains symbolise moral steadfastness, while forests and flowing water evoke ideas of renewal and the cyclical rhythms of nature.

The scroll is inscribed shunrin enkō (春 林 遠 岫, spring forest distant peaks). Two seals accompany the artist’s signature. The work is dated to the early winter of Tenpō 15 (1844), meaning it was created in the final decade of Chikutō’s life. This late in his career, Chikutō had perfected various styles of Chinese literati painting. He particularly admired the Yuan masters Ni Zan and Huang Gongwang, whose measured compositions informed his landscape paintings, which Chikutō reinterpreted through his individual touch. Further notes describe Aizanrō (愛 山 楼, mountain-loving pavilion), which may have been the name of Chikutō’s studio, which overlooked the Shirakawa stream in Kyoto, and where this piece was sketched. This reference to painting from life illustrates the artist’s ability to respond confidently to observed environments.

This ink and colour painting on silk is displayed on old silk mounts in the chagake style (茶 掛け, suitable for a tea-ceremony room. The jōge (上 下, mounting fabric) is executed on off-white, plain woven silk in a nanako basket weave. The surrounding fabric (中ベリ, chūberi ) features crest medallions on a saya pattern, and the ichimonji (一文 字, brocade strips) and fūtai (風 帯, hanging strips of fabric) are a golden brown colour with a floral design. The kirijiku (桐軸, wooden roller ends) are dark brown lacquer. This scroll is preserved in its original tomobako (共 箱, wooden box) with a protective paper cover. The tomobako is inscribed in Japanese that translates to ‘vertical landscape scroll by the ancestor Chikutō’ and is accompanied by text that may be the name of a collector. A second inscription inside the lid reads Baisō alongside two seals of 松 村 梅 叟 (Matsumura Baisō, 1884 1934), who once owned this work.

The work itself bears an inscription written in kaisho (楷書, formal style) that reads:

春林遠岫 / shunrin enkou / spring forest, distant peaks

天保こうしんもう / Tenpō kōshin mō / early Kōshin (1844)

冬せい / fuyu sei / winter scene

愛山楼中 / aizanrō chū / Looking out from the ‘Mountain-loving pavilion’

This reading is by staff members of the Tōkyō National Museum, corresponding to a painting in the Mary and Jackson Burke collection made by Chikutō in the same year (see literature).

NAKABAYASHI CHIKUTŌ 中林竹洞 (1776–1853)

A leading Japanese nanga (literati) painter, renowned for refined ink landscapes inspired by Chinese Yuan-dynasty masters, particularly Ni Zan, and for helping establish the theoretical foundations of literati painting in Japan. Trained through close study of imported Chinese paintings in Nagoya and later active in Kyoto’s literati circles, he combined painterly practice with scholarship, authoring influential treatises such as Gadō kongōsho and Chikutō garon . An important intellectual figure as well as an artist, Chikutō exemplifies the Edo-period ideal of the scholar-artist.

Chikutō was highly esteemed for his disciplined brushwork, subtle modulation of ink tones, and sophisticated command of classical Chinese compositional models, which he reinterpreted with clarity and restraint rather than overt virtuosity. His paintings were admired for their intellectual rigor as much as their visual elegance, earning him a reputation among contemporaries as a painter of exceptional cultivation and moral seriousness. By the late Edo period, he was recognized not only as one of the foremost nanga painters of his generation but also as an authoritative voice on painting theory, and his works were sought after by educated collectors who valued erudition, lineage, and connoisseurship.