The poem on this scroll is from episode eight of the Tales of Ise. The hero is finding life in the capital difficult and decides to move to eastern Japan, setting off with a couple of close friends. En route he sees smoke rising from Mount Asama and com- poses the poem here. The picture shows him viewing Mount Asama atop his horse.

This is one of the fifty-nine paintings from the Sotatsu’s Illustrated Tales of Ise (Sotatsu Ise monogatarizu shikishi). Thirty-six of those pieces, including this one, are part of the former Masuda Donno Collection. In some, a signature on the back of the painting identifies the name of the calligrapher, who inscribed the poem. An inscription ‘Lord Niwata’ was recently discovered on the back of this piece when it was remounted. The style of brushwork suggests that this refers to the courtier Niwata Masazumi (1627−1663).

Scholars believe the paintings in Sotatsu’s Illustrated Tales of Ise to be the work of Sotatsu himself together with several members of his studio. Although the motifs were taken from several versions of the Illustrated Tales of Ise, the Sotatsu paintings are original works and not merely copies. The work here shares notable similarities with the Ono Collection, the British Library, and the Saga versions of the Illustrated Tales of Ise.  The basic composition is based on these sources, but the simple decorative use of malachite green and lapis lazuli blue for the mountain range and rocks is entirely Sotatsu’s own. The black clumps of plants beside the rocks are also found in other paintings of the Sotatsu’s Illustrated Tales of Ise and likely derived from the Illustrated Life of the Poet-Monk Saigyo (Saigyo Hoshi gyojo ekotoba). Sotatsu copied this illustrated picture scroll in 1630; his studio likely adopted this motif around the same time.

In this painting, the horse has both front legs raised, unlike the horses in the Saga and Ono Collection versions, which only raise one leg, and the British Library version, which has both front legs lowered. A horse with both front legs raised and similar accessories is found in a fan painting, Horse Racing at Kamigamo Shrine, on a screen with scattered fan paintings (fig. 197 in Paintings of Rimpa: Sotatsu school 1), leading us to believe that this may have derived from Horse Racing at Kamigamo Shrine. There are other depictions of horses in Sotatsu’s Illustrated Tales of Ise but each is subtly different, providing another indication that several painters participated in their production. A distinctive feature of the horse in this piece is the fact that it is black but with no black-ink outlines; this is a technique known as horinuri (literally, “carved coloring”) also found in Sotatsu’s Oxen from Chomyo-ji temple in Kyoto.

Tawaraya Sotatsu (painter; act. early 17th century)
Also known as Ietsu
Noto or Kaga-born painter in the Azuchi-momoyama and early Edo period. Lived in Hoshu-ji temple, Kyoto, and learned Kano Eitoku’s painting methods, as well as ancient Tosa line-drawing style. Regarded as the originator of the Rimpa School. Close to calligraphers including Karasumaru Mitsuhiro and Hon’ami Koetsu. Used seals such as inen, taiseiken.