Tawaraya Sōtatsu

Verified Timeline

Lore & Background

The exact date of Sōtatsu's birth, probably around 1570, remains unknown, and so does the place of his birth. The painter Tani Bunchō (1763–1841) stated that Sōtatsu was originally from Noto and that he studied under Sumiyoshi Jokei in Kyoto. His family name may have been Nonomura. In 1602 he was hired by the Taira family to repair the 12th-century sutra scrolls Heike nōkyō at the Itsukushima shrine on Miyajima. This is the earliest paintings attributed to Sōtatsu, but it already features the characteristics of his later work. It is suspected that Kōetsu might have also worked in the repair of the scroll. Sōtatsu married a cousin of Koetsu. He also opened a shop in Kyoto, named Tawaraya, where he sold a variety of decorated objects, including fans, lantern paper, screens, dolls and patterns for kimono, and also took commissions for decorating interiors. The shop soon gained recognition for its artistic excellence. The first confirmed collaboration with Hon'ami Kōetsu is in the Sagabon (Saga Books), an ambitious project started around 1606 by Suminokura Soan (1571–1632) to publish elaborate editions of classical Japanese book and Noh librettos. Sōtatsu created the designs for the covers and paper of many of the books, while Kōetsu was the calligrapher of some of the texts. The collaboration between Sōtatsu and Kōetsu came to an end around 1620, perhaps because he was moving away from the profession of decorator and designer, and started focusing more on his career as a painter. He decorated the doors and screens of the Yōgen-in temple during the reconstruction ordered by Tokugawa Hidetada's wife in 1621, and in 1630 he was given the title of hokkyō ("Bridge of the Dharma"), the third highest rank awarded to Buddhist artists. The circumstances of Sōtatsu's death are not known, but he probably died around 1640. The most successful among his direct students were Tawaraya Sōsetsu and Kitawaga Sōsetsu.

Reader's Guide

Tawaraya Sōtatsu is significant as a co-founder of the Rinpa school, a group of artists directly influenced by him and Hon'ami Kōetsu. Some of the most notable Rinpa artists are Ogata Kōrin (1658–1716), Ogata Kenzan (1663–1743) and Sakai Hōitsu (1761–1828). While not particularly known at the time he lived and painted, he is now the second-most recognized Japanese painter in terms of number of inclusions in the National Treasures of Japan list. His National Treasure Wind God and Thunder God is a pair of two-folded screens made using ink and color on gold-foiled paper, depicting Raijin and Fūjin. The screens have no inscription or seal, but its attribution to Tawaraya Sotatsu is not questioned. Two other major Rinpa figures, Ogata Kōrin and Sakai Hōitsu, replicated the painting in homage. All three versions were displayed together for the first time in seventy-five years in 2015 at the Kyoto National Museum exhibition "Rinpa: The Aesthetics of the Capital". Another major work is Waves at Matsushima, painted in the 1620s, considered by some to be Sōtatsu's masterwork. He popularized the tarashikomi technique, exemplified in Dragons and Clouds at the Freer Gallery of Art, where ink is artfully pooled to create features such as the clouds. His collaboration with Kōetsu produced works such as Anthology with Cranes, a handscroll decorated with silver and gold pigment containing waka poems from the Thirty-Six Immortals of Poetry, and Poem Scroll with Deer, with poems from the anthology Shin Kokinshu. The Freer Gallery of Art organized the first retrospective outside Japan from October 2015 to January 2016.

Did You Know?

• Sōtatsu's family name may have been Nonomura, according to the painter Tani Bunchō.
• In 1630 he was given the title hokkyō ('Bridge of the Dharma'), the third highest rank awarded to Buddhist artists.
• The handscroll Anthology with Cranes measures 34.1 cm x 1356 cm and is an Important Cultural Property at the Kyoto National Museum.
• The Poem Scroll with Deer was split into fragments after World War II; the largest contiguous section is at the Seattle Art Museum.
• The Freer Gallery of Art organized the first retrospective of Sōtatsu's work outside Japan from October 2015 to January 2016.