Waterfall 瀧 | Mori Ippō 森一鳳 | 1798-1871

Ippō is a brilliant figure in the Mori school of painting. This school was founded by Mori Sosen, whose distinction was no longer to paint nature – especially animals – according to traditional patterns, but to retreat into the wilderness to observe monkeys and deer etc. closely and then portray them. Ippō is a grand-pupil of this ingenious painter, and with the training of his direct teacher Mori Tetsuzan, by whom he was adopted, he was able to admirably develop the founder's legacy.

Painting waterfalls is tempting, but they are a problem because water itself can hardly be painted. The plunging masses of water can only be created in the imagination of the viewer. Mori paints the rock over which the water plunges relatively dark on the left side and adds only a few leafy branches to meet his claim of realistic painting. He then ventures to suggest a few streaks of water with heavily diluted ink, but these do not extend beyond the middle of the picture. Mori also knows that there is no ink painting technique available to fully paint water. 

With a refined realistic detail, the scenery gains atmosphere: to suggest the observed mist above the waterfall, the coloring of the narrow strip of sky does not quite touch the plunging water, thereby creating the impression of spray.

Japanese people love waterfalls and also saw manifestations of the divine in them. In the hot summers, they liked to hang pictures of waterfalls in their art niche to create at least visually a feeling of freshness and coolness in the house…