Itō Jakuchū 伊藤若冲 (1716 –1800)

Chicken by a New Year’s Cask

Hanging scroll, ink on paper

Signature: Beito’ō gyōnen hachijūsai egaku 米斗翁行年八十歳画 »Old man Beito painted this in his eightieth year of his life«

Seals: (Top) Tō Jokin in 藤女鈞印 »The seal of Tō Jokin«, (Bottom) Jakuchū koji 若冲居士 »The lay monk Jakuchū«

Inscription (on painting): »So beautiful / the water that springs / from these chicken« 美や此鶏よりあふて水若き
Signed: Seki Musan 石無賛

Inscription (on box, front): »The roughly festive chicken by old man Itō Jakuchū (sic)« 伊藤若仲翁粗祝鶏

Inscription (on box, back): »The character chū (sic) is written chū (correct). Signed Arifumi on the third month of 1860« 仲者冲也 庚寺申三月春有文「印」

A rooster balances himself on the edge of an empty cask that has been decorated for the New Year. A flock of chicks look on from the rim and a hen regards her mate apprehensively from below. The rooster is drawn in a range of ink tones, patterns, and techniques and clearly takes the center of the stage with his acrobatic feats. The hen, in contrast, is outlined in a wavering ink stroke and completed with thin, finely-drawn features.

Jakuchū’s chickens, whether posturing males or timorous females, never appear as static figures; they are always shown in a dynamic state and relate to each other. That is also the case in this painting, in which the composition hinges on a line that can be drawn from the rooster to the hen; one that is neatly intersected by the three chicks in the middle. This line forms the central point of tension within the painting, and the artist, in order to emphasize this focal point, depicts the hen looking up toward the rooster, the gaze, in effect, reinforcing this line.

The ink tones are expertly varied, even within individual lines: for example, how ink of darker tone is drawn into the rope that holds the cask together or the legs of the rooster, and how the fine texture of the fern branches are emphasized with expertly applied ink modalities. Not only are the finer, careful ink details planned, but flamboyant touches are created in a seemingly spontaneous manner, such as the striking whip-like strokes of dark modality that form the rooster’s tail feathers. The very variation of ink, such as in the body of the rooster, creates an exciting set of patterns that work together in defining the shape of the animal beneath it.

There are other examples with similar compositions and representations of Jakuchū’s chickens; the topic seems to have been a favorite one for the artist and his friends.1 This particular work was created at the end of his life, when he was leaving much of the daily business of his Fushimi highway shop to his students and was largely free to visit friends and to take part in meetings of cultural salons.2 A number of the paintings at the time were planned so that the inscriptions of friends could be inserted. The present case seems be such a work, where the painting was completed in a communal setting. After Jakuchū drew his painting, Seki Musan inscribed the painting with a poem that described the composition and how the beautiful chickens will bring forth the water in the empty cask.3 Judging from the decoration on the container, this collaborative work may well have been created at a New Year's gathering in Jakuchū’s eightieth year.4

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