Pine in Rain (T-3814)

Pine in Rain, 1910s–20s
Hanging scroll; ink and shell powder on silk
Image size 54½ x 26¼ in. (139 x 67.3 cm)
Overall size 89¾ x 33 in. (228 x 84 cm)
T-3814
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Senshu first studied Japanese-style painting under Kato Gennosuke, then Western-style painting under the leading Meiji-era painter Asai Chu. Senshu was particularly interested in pencil drawing and gained a formidable reputation for his skill in this medium. Together with other young Nihonga painters he formed a group that developed into the association Heigogakai which held regular exhibitions from 1907 to 1912. In 1919 Senshu submitted a painting to the first Teiten national art exhibition that showed his style to be developing in a more traditional direction, and it was from this time that he started to create designs for Yuzen textile dyeing. An exhibition of Senshu’s pencil drawings, watercolors, and Nihonga-style paintings was held in 2008 at Sakura City Museum of Art. The present scroll deftly adapts Senshu’s skill with the pencil and applies it to the traditional medium of brush and ink, producing an effect which is both naturalistic and meditative.