snipe | Konoshima Ōkoku 木島桜谷 | 1877-1938

Konoshima Ōkoku is one of the outstanding virtuoso painters of the turn of the last century. The degree of his high contemporary recognition can be gauged by his frequent participation in national art exhibitions (Bunten), where the strictest selection criteria prevailed. He is considered a master of bird/plant themes (kachōga), but is also highly respected as a landscape painter.

His picture mounts, for which he took the greatest care, are particularly valuable. In this picture, the choice of shiny silk is particularly striking. Depending on the angle, it shimmers in shades of blue or green. The painter did not paint the water in which the snipe is standing at all, and so he reproduces the quality of the water with this shimmering silk fabric.

The design of the scroll mounts, which he had made from ceramic, is also his work. Here, an old Japanese water motif of the spiral is used, which in turn refers to the pictorial element "water", which is only suggested but not actually painted. Such a subtle, clever mounting is aesthetically the high point of the presentation of a scroll painting.   

Konoshima's works can be found in Kyoto in the City Art Museum and in Tokyo in both the Idemitsu Collection and the National Museum of Modern Art. In the authoritative illustrated book series "Genshoku Nihon no Bijutsu" he is represented with a large folding screen in volume 30 (p. 72).