4-fold screen / gold foil | Yokoyama Taikan (sign.) 横山大観 (落款) | 1868-1958

Yokoyama Taikan is one of the great personalities in early 20th century painting. He was the most famous student of Hashimoto Gahō, who redefined painting during the Meiji period (1868-1912). Taikan became a professor at the country's leading art institutions, but he maintained an independent spirit and traveled extensively to various countries. He was greatly admired and frequently imitated. His styles range widely, but he found a way of depicting things in all his paintings that one quickly perceives as "typically Taikan." Taikan plays with various classical elements here, but his new approach to them is a lack of self-evidence. Many aspects of this landscape painting, upon closer inspection, appear illogical in their combination - but this was precisely what appealed to Taikan. 

The relationship between interior and exterior space is ingenious. The use of blinds (sudare), for example, inspired him to play with the decorative elements of the blind edge and the view of the pine tree. The pine tree and the blind edge merge together in a completely unrealistic way. Taikan also didn't shy away from drawing a golden cloud in front of the blind on the far right – in the interior! In his world – and this is a modern trait for him – anything that makes a good formal impression and has an attractively playful effect is permissible.

The coloring of the entire screen with shades of brown, green, and gold is exceptionally elegant. However, the use of white (for the chrysanthemums) was fashionable at the time and irritated the classical approach to painting.