Pheasant | Mori Kansai 森寛斎 | 1814-1894

Mori Kansai is one of the three most important representatives of the Mori School in the 19th century. During his lifetime, he received high honors in the art world and participated in important exhibitions. His name is part of the core of 19th-century painting. His works can be found in major museums in Japan, the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford, and the Boston Museum of Fine Arts.

The subject of the magnificent pheasant is certainly a standard one, even if it is certainly less common in the Japanese art world than cranes, wild geese, and others. Because of their magnificent plumage, pheasants are often depicted in lavish colors. However, Mori Kansai restrains the colorfulness here, shifting the richness into nuances of brown and gray with a diverse brushwork.

The bird perches on a blossoming branch from a tree whose species is not entirely easy to identify. More important than botanical clarity, however, is the painter's reasoning: the restrained color scheme, the delicate pink blossoms, are not meant to compete with the red of the bird's head, and the delicate light green of the leaves is meant to remain subdued so as not to detract from the fascinating interplay of various shades of brown and gray in the magnificent plumage.

The pheasant painting was a scroll painting measuring 220 cm in length. Hanging such a painting requires a ceiling height of at least 250 cm. This was not common in a Japanese middle-class house of that time—only imposing villas had such rooms. This also makes it clear for whom this famous painter painted this magnificent subject.