Diptych Lotus | Hine Taizan 日根對山 | 1813-1869 (presumably 1860)

Hine Taizan is an outstanding painter from the Osaka region. Painters from Osaka always had a harder time being active throughout Japan than those from Kyoto, where "good art" was defined. Taizan therefore moved to Kyoto to secure his connection to great art. Nevertheless, he continued to be regarded as a painter from Osaka, as his surname, which he never disowned, proves: "Hine" is a village south of Osaka.

The two-panel painting was originally a diptych, which has been combined here into a double image. The reason for this combination was to highlight how ingeniously in this composition the lotus blossoms, their stems and leaves engage in a dialogue with each other across the image boundaries in the extreme vertical format. A wonderful dance of focal points emerges, moving from one image to the other and back again. Taizan also integrates his prominently placed signature into this dialogue. On the left, he places it in the middle of the image, and on the right, in the upper area. This creates an upward movement in the composition, which is very original and also unusual.

Taizan mastered various styles, as would be expected of a painter of his stature. Here he chose a rather rustic, coarse-grained paper and adapted his brushwork accordingly. Even the delicately opened blossom shows a sketchily improvised stroke, which, however, primarily gives the leaves a dramatically ephemeral pathos.   

The seals could not be confirmed, which is not surprising, as over 70 seals are known from this painter... He seems to have enjoyed creating and using new seals.