In April 1926, Tanaka Beison, later known as Isson, enrolled at the Japanese Painting Department of the Tokyo Fine Arts School. However, already in June of the same year, he dropped out from the prestigious school that had produced outstanding artists such as Yokoyama Taikan, Hishida Shunso or Shimomura Kanzan, and that many assumed would become his springboard for a successful art career. Beison, until then a self-taught nanga (literati) painter, wasn’t comfortable with the educational goals at that time, which aimed to fuse traditional nihonga with Western painting that had been introduced to Japan during the Meiji era. At the age of 18, Beison was included into the anthology Notable Contemporary Painters and Calligraphers, and the Tanaka Beison Sanshokai exhibition was held at the Lecture Hall of the Kokumin Shinbun newspaper corporation in Kyobashi (Tokyo). Apparently Beison was already established to some degree during that time.

According to the inscription “kanoto hitsuji boshun no tsuki Beison-ga” (third month of 1931, painted by Beison), White Peonies was completed in late spring of 1931. Considering the artist’s stylistic development over the years, this was around the time when he made his first steps to abandon the corset of the literati style for a new mode of painterly expression. Two years earlier, in 1929, he painted the standing screen Peonies / Orchids and Bamboo, with a splendidly colored, yet calm peonies on one side of the screen, and orchids and bamboo, done in ink over gold leaf, on the other. That screen exemplified the mysterious, deep beauty of Isson’s world.

Normally, for the various peonies shown in full bloom the artist would take advantage of the material beauty of nihonga pigments themselves, including ultramarine, deep green and vermilion, but here, by contrast, Isson follows a different approach, delineating the blossoms with manifold layers of petals, while relying only on the representative Godaishu (“five continents”) variant of peonies, with their white blossoms that begin to fall here and there. The abundance of its deep green leaves is another characteristic of that type of peonies, providing a strong sense of its physical presence. The swallowtail butterfly near the upper right corner belongs to the Red Helen (papilio helenus) subspecies, the largest or second-largest in the swallowtail butterfly family. In its detailed depiction of the color pattern and its antennae, Isson adds a naturalistic feel to the work that further raises its decorativeness.

In the context of the overall composition, the swallowtail butterfly is not randomly placed, but deliberately squeezed into a small space surrounded by leaves, and the vertical scroll adds to the impression of the motifs—flowers, leaves and the trunk—filling all available space to the maximum. Rather than a problem of composition, this seems to reflect the doubts of Isson, the literati artist, about the significance of his art and his artistic future.

The characters of the seal near the lower right corner read zi wu zuo gu kong qun xiong in Chinese; it is based on a line by the late Qing dynasty artist Wu Changshuo and means that one shouldn’t let oneself be imprisoned in admiration of the ancients but carve out one’s own path. The motto represents Isson’s aspirations well, considering that in later years the painter courageously embarked on exploring new ground and secured himself a position that was wholly his own.

Tanaka Isson (nihonga painter; 1908–1977)
Nihonga painter from Tochigi Prefecture, son of the sculptor Tanaka Yakichi (Toson). Intrigued by literati painting, Isson enrolled at the Tokyo Fine Arts School around the same time as fellow painters Higashiyama Kaii and Hashimoto Meiji but dropped out three months later. Isson was able to exhibit his works at the Seiryukai exhibitions, though he eventually severed his ties with the established art world. In 1958, he relocated to Amami Oshima (south of Kyushu), where he concentrated on painting motifs inspired by the nature of the island.