The term sangei (or shungei) of Takeuchi Seiho’s original Japanese title means “beast” or “lion,” an appropriate expression for the majestic, resting lion of this hanging scroll. According to the inscription on the box, the artist painted this work in March 1902 in his studio “Kogyoso,” located near the intersection of Abura no koji street and Oike street in central Kyoto.

Two years earlier in 1900, Japan participated in the Exposition Universelle in Paris, introducing numerous representative works of Japanese fine art and crafts to European audience. Seiho, who was among the selected artists, left Japan in August of that year and went on to spend a total of seven months in Europe studying Western art. The art world back in Japan was eagerly awaiting to see how the experience might have affected Seiho’s approach. After his return, the painter submitted Lion (written with different characters than the present work) to the seventh Shinko bijutsuhin-ten (Exhibition of antique and new art) in April 1901. Japanese art aficionados at that time were only used to the traditional motif of kara-jishi (Chinese lion), a mythical beast that bore little physical resemblance to any actual living animal. Not surprisingly, Seiho’s naturalistic painting, based the artist’s sketching of real animals at the zoos of London and Antwerp and executed in a sepia tone made from squid ink, caused considerable furor in Japan. For some time at least, this let to a veritable wave of requests for lion paintings by Seiho. The present work is clearly part of that context. The detail of the lion’s tail near the lower margin of the scroll indicates the animal being at rest and serves as a reminder of its full size and pose.

Considering Seiho’s paintings of animals, one cannot help but think of the painter’s admiration of Maruyama Okyo. Among the many extravagant anecdotes about the latter, there is an episode recounted in the novelist Kyokutei Bakin’s Stories of a Night in the Hall of Writing, that Bakin wrote after spending the summer of 1802 in the Kyoto /Osaka area. According to the hearsay of some old people, Okyo had been commissioned to paint a sleeping boar, something which he never had observed in real life. Just at that time, he met an old woman who had come to the city from Yase in the north of the capital. Okyo asked her that if she saw a sleeping boar out there in Yase she should quickly notify him. As promised, the old woman alerted Okyo when one day she saw such an animal rested in a nearby bamboo grove. The painter went to sketch the animal, and after coming home made clear copies of his sketches. As it happens, when he was mostly finished with his painting, a man from Kurama visited and looked at the work. The man said that boar was not sleeping but sick, instead it must be affected by some disease. The stunned painter then set out to find a healthy boar and corrected his picture.

Seiho’s abilities to sketch from nature have often been compared to Okyo’s, for instance his Green Pond (c. 1927), showing a frog in the moment when it just raises its head above the surface of the water, is often quoted to evoke Seiho’s skill. Green Pond counts among the artist’s most elegant works. Yet despite the effort that he invests into the naturalistic rendering of the background of the water and the frog’s legs, the work hardly suggests the atmosphere of a real frog’s habitat. Most likely such hanging scrolls were used to decorate the tokonoma alcove in the upstairs tatami rooms of elegant small dining places. Patrons would not have appreciated a too realistic appeal that would distract their customers from their meals. Seiho, who knew very well to what purpose his paintings were employed, kept this in mind and always moderated his naturalism to not overwhelm the viewer.

Takeuchi Seiho (nihonga painter; 1864–1942)
Nihonga painter, born in Kyoto. Seiho graduated from the Kyoto Prefectural School of Painting where he had studied under Tsuchida Eirin and Kono Bairei. Together with Yokoyama Taikan and Kawai Gyokudo, he is considered one of the leading figures of the Nihonga movement of the early twentieth century. In addition to an immense corpus of works, Seiho taught many young artists and made important contributions the modernization of Japanese painting. Bunten (Japan Art Academy Exhibition) jury member and receiver of the Order of Culture in 1937.