Introduction

Very little is known about the life of Tawaraya Sōtatsu, who created this magnificent pair of folding screens early in the Edo period. What is known, according to art historian Yukio Lippit, is that “he was the head of a painting shop in Kyoto in the early seventeenth century who initially painted primarily for the merchant class. But he was such a popular painter—the dynamism of composition, his design acumen, his use of abstract forms and materials were all so remarkable that he came to the attention of the Imperial court. By the end of his life, he produced some of the most memorable screens that we have from the Edo period.”

Sōtatsu did not paint these screens to be mimetic: neither the waves nor the land nor the trees are rendered realistically. Yet we can easily recognize them in his depictions. The overall effect, so highly stylized as to be nearly abstract, is a dynamic portrayal of the power of nature. Although the details are painstakingly rendered, the overall impression is of the forces animating the natural elements: the wave crests seem to be driven by a life of their own; majestic cliffs appear resolute against the roiling seas buffeting them; and a mysterious, cloudlike formation and pine trees loom above them.

Although the screens are titled Waves at Matsushima, they had no title when Charles Lang Freer, founder of the Freer Gallery of Art, purchased them in 1906. The seascape Sōtatsu created is most likely not a representation of a specific place, but rather a celebration of the awesome power and bounty of the sea.