Uchida Hirotsune 内田広恒 (fl. circa 1800 – 30)

Deer and Autumn Maples

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Hanging scroll, colors, ink, and gold on silk

Signature: Hirotsune ga 広恒画 »painted by Hirotsune«
Seal: Bunkyō 文卿

In this autumnal scene, a stag stands among grassy hills, its head cocked, on the alert for danger. The legs of the deer are restless, about to move at a moment’s notice if needed, further emphasizing the ephemeral quality of the scene. Colorful maple leaves can be seen above on the tree to the upper left; a few have fallen and can be seen near the deer’s hooves.

The deer in autumn is a classic Japanese theme, in painting as well as in literature, and numerous famous poems refer to this combination, usually referencing the plaintive cry of the lonely male deer among the autumn hills.1 A number of artists have imagined such scenes through the centuries, and in this painting, the Sumiyoshi-school artist Hirotsune reduces the scene to its barest essentials: the hills, a tree, and a furtive deer.

The artist was a Sumiyoshi-school painter but painted here with several Rimpa-school elements, including the dripping-pigment technique tarashikomi (where ink and pigments are dripped into still-wet paints) on the deer’s back and on the maple tree trunk; the lack of ink outlines and the fluid character of the deer; the use of gold wash on the clouds; and the traces of the brush left on the leaves and the hilltops.2

This painting is an important reminder that for much of its history the Rimpa was seen not as a school but as a style that could be used by a wide range of artists. It is also a reminder that Japanese artists of the Edo period were typically versatile in more than one style—and that the concept of painting schools, into which we usually attempt to pigeonhole artists, exists more as a convenient way to classify them, and less as an expression of the works that they actually produced.

As for the details of Hirotsune’s life, we know that he was trained under Sumiyoshi Hiroyuki and that he was active in the early half of the nineteenth century.3 We also know that he was given commissions for temples, possibly through his teacher’s connections, including an extant narrative handscroll in Jōsenji Temple 常宣寺 in Fukushima Prefecture, a scroll titled Jōsenji engi emaki 常宣寺縁起絵巻 that depicts the origin of the temple and the miraculous events that took place there, including those related to its Amida figures. The handscroll is depicted in typical Sumiyoshi-school style, with rich mineral pigments and fine colorful details, as in the present painting.

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