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Kono Bairei (1844-1895) Meiji Period
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Kakejiku, in ink and colour on paper, a pair of scrolls: each decorated with a toad among a myriad of assorted insects, one with chou (butterflies), kamakiri (mantis), katatsumuri (snail), kabutomushi (beetle) and ibogaeru (toad with wart-covered skin) and aogaeru (green-coloured frog), the other with tonbo, (dragonflies), ageha chou (swallow-tail butterflies), batta (grasshoppers) and gamagaeru, respectively signed Bairei sei (?) and Bairei toyo; with wood tomobako titled and signed by the artist. 101.5cm x 44.7cm (40in x 17 5/8in). (3).
Footnotes
虫蛙図 幸野楳嶺 双幅 紙本着色 明治時代
Bairei was best known as one of the leading practitioners of the ukiyo-e school devoted to pictures of birds and flowers (kacho-ga) during the Meiji period. He was born and lived in Kyoto, and was originally named Yasuda Bairei. Unlike many other ukiyo-e artists, he was trained as a classical Japanese painter, studying in depth with a number of Masters of various classical painting styles including the Maruyama painter Nakajima Raisho and the Shijo-school painter Shiokawa Bunrin as well as Nanga-school painters, suggesting that he only engaged in woodblock prints as a pastime. As exemplified by his work, presented here, he was clearly also influenced by Western realism, while at the same time remaining fully rooted in the indigenous Japanese artistic tradition.
























