“Bamboo in Ink”

Kakutei

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Artist Name
Kakutei
Title
“Bamboo in Ink”
Dimensions
painting：129.0×28.2㎝
full length：202.5×40.0㎝
Medium
Ink on paper
Description
This is an ink painting of bamboo by Kakutei. Two bamboo stalks, rendered in the *mokkotsu* (boneless) technique, are placed on the left side of the composition. By eliminating all background elements and shifting the motif toward one side of the picture plane, the artist creates a broad area of empty space, which in turn gives the work a sense of depth and quiet tension.

Kakutei was the art name of Kaigan Jōkō (1722–1786), a mid-Edo period Ōbaku Zen monk. His religious names included Genpō and Etatsu, later Kaigan; his Dharma names were Jōyō, Jōkō, and Jōhaku. While he is best known by the painting name Kakutei, he also used such studio names as Nyōze Dōjin, Nyōze Shujin, Beijuō, Hakuyō Sanjin, Nansōō, Bokuō, and Gojian.

He was the Dharma heir of Gakusō, the fourth abbot of Shōfuku-ji in Nagasaki. Initially ordained at that temple, he left the priesthood at the age of twenty-five and became a pupil of Yūhi (Xiong Fei), a direct disciple of Shen Nanpin. There he studied richly colored, naturalistic bird-and-flower painting and established his own distinctive style. He later returned to the Ōbaku order and spent fifteen years at Shiun-in, a subtemple of Manpuku-ji. Although invited to serve as abbot of Shōfuku-ji, he declined. He subsequently moved to Osaka and then to Edo.

He maintained close friendships with leading cultural figures such as Kimura Kenkadō, Yanagisawa Ki’en, Ike Taiga, and the Ōbaku monks Taihō Shōkun and Monchū Jōfuku. By disseminating the style of Shen Nanpin throughout the Kyoto–Osaka region, he played a key role in fostering a current of realism in the painting circles of the late Edo period.

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