Since we already talked about the fusuma paintings in the Main Hall, here in the Collection Room I’d like for you to imagine who Rosetsu the artist was.
Rosetsu showed talent in painting from a young age. We don’t know who his initial master was, but we do know that he took on Ōkyo’s tutelage at the age of 25.

Ōkyo was known as “the father of sketching”, and was a master of drawing realistic aspects of life and nature. He was famous for saying, “If you’re going to draw a human, you must first be certain of the skeleton before you can draw its clothing.” But this “sketching” does not refer to drawing whatever you see in front of you, like in an art class. Instead, it means, sketching things over and over again, honing your technique, until you draw something that looks like it could be real. Ōkyo also said that, “When painting large spaces like fusuma, you must appreciate the space between you and the painting. If there is a time when you are up close and cannot continue to move your brush, look upon it from afar, and you will see the beauty of it in your heart.”

While still young, Rosetsu dedicated himself to Ōkyo’s principles and learned his painting style. Gradually, he started to build a name for himself in Kyoto. When he was 33 years old, his master ordered him to go to Wakayama to paint at Muryōji Temple. What must he have thought about as he traveled across the land? The tiger painting and the dragon painting did not come from a sudden rebelliousness. Rosetsu had studied a similar composition style to Ōkyo’s in the past, but he felt like it was not enough for him to paint like Okyo. He had to find his own path.

That may have been a nagging conflict for him that began to erupt during his trip to Wakayama and exploded while painting the fusuma at Muryōji. It’s possible he just wanted to draw Okyo’s tigers and dragons in his own style. Perhaps he didn’t want to draw realistically. He may have wanted to break the mold instead. Maybe throughout his travels he had been searching for a solution, and then, when he placed his brush down after finishing the tiger, he was finally able to say, “I did it.”

After painting the tiger, Rosetsu started on his own path.

Of the works in the Collection Room, the painting of Hotei, the Sparrows, and the Dogs is from before his departure from Ōkyo’s style. The Drunken Tiger was painted after. Let’s compare them.

The painting of Hotei, the Sparrows, and the Dogs includes bamboo trees as well as dogs. If you combine the Japanese characters for “bamboo” and “dog”, you get the character for “laugh,” and laughter is a theme in the works that Rosetsu created before his independence. The technique of painting cute, fluffy dogs was inherited from Ōkyo, but compared to Ōkyo’s realistic style, Rosetsu tends to make them a bit more human-like. Some people, however, say that Rosetsu’s style actually makes human children more dog-like, instead.

In contrast, the Drunken Tiger painting, which some say was an improvisation, takes the distortion of features even further. The more detail one tries to paint, the more it stops looking like a frozen moment in time, and the more lively it becomes. In painting the Drunken Tiger, Rosetsu may have found his own style by creating movement within a painting.

What’s more, in “The Monkey and a Loincloth”, if you follow to the end of the mysterious line that the man is holding, which leads to the back of the panel, you will find a monkey. This is another of Rosetsu’s tricks, and in interesting example of his playful spirit.

Rosetsu explored his own style as he traveled around the temples of Wakayama, and then after returning to Kyoto, he continued to paint freely.

Sometimes he would paint live at a banquet, improvising and using strange techniques like setting aside his paintbrush and using his fingers and nails, or painting while he was drunk. As a result, his work is filled with rough, distorted paintings that are almost the opposite of Ōkyo’s style.

On occasion, he would also paint in collaboration with poetry, where, as he created a visual, a poet would compose words to go along with it.

Customers would often compete to buy these works at high prices, but it’s said that he would squander the money he earned as soon as he earned it on lavish parties.

Rosetsu also experienced a lot of hardship in his personal life. He lost four children: one in the womb, one at the age of three, and two at the age of two. This, too, would affect his art, which slowly began to reflect the darkness in his heart.

Today, there are many strange stories about Rosetsu’s life that have been passed down through the years. One says that he was excommunicated by Ōkyo three times, and another says that he once got so carried away doing acrobatics with a spinning top, that he poked his eye out and went blind. Yet another tells us that someone poisoned him to death out of revenge. We don’t know if any of these are true; it’s not even certain if Ōkyo and Rosetsu ever did have a true falling out. But we do know that Rosetsu did continue to paint based on Ōkyo’s style until the end of his life, and he was even invited to participate in a grand project in which all of Ōkyo’s apprentices were called to help. It may well be that Ōkyo actually approved of his student’s new style.

One certifiable truth is that just four years after Ōkyo’s death, Rosetsu also died, suddenly, at the age of 46, just 14 years after painting the fusuma at Muryōji. One can’t help but wonder what kind of life he led in those years in between. It might be worth exploring more of his work to find out.