Kitsu

Born in 1796, this brilliant Japanese artist expressed his skill for decorations through flower paintings. The principal pupil of the Rimpa revivalist, Sakai Hoitsu (1761-1828), Kiitsu worked in the city of Edo. The seasonal flowers which cascade down the hanging scrolls of his work take on an almost enamelled polish, a combination of the use of rich pigments such as azurite blue and Kiitsu's hard edged accurate brushwork. The brittle quality of the flowers is softened by the hazy puddling and mixing of the waterlogged green pigment which is applied to the leaves and stems, and by the gently curving shapes of the bush clover and orchid leaves. Earlier Rimpa artists such as Korin had used a bold pattern and stylised flower forms, but by Kiitsu's time much more naturalism had crept into the paintings of all schools and he attempts here a much more complex tangle of intertwining plants.

Kitsu Images:
Flowers and Grasses I
Flowers and Grasses II