岸駒筆　寿老人図|Jurōjin

Gan Ku (Kishi Ganku)

1838 · Hanging scroll; ink and color on silk · Asian Art

Jurōjin, one of the Seven Gods of Good Fortune, depicted wearing a tall cap and leaning on a bamboo staff, is accompanied by a deer, who holds a magical fungus in its mouth. A rolled up scroll tied to the end of the deity’s bamboo staff seems to be tangled in the branches above. Kishi Ganku, who studied paintings of the Maruyama-Shijō school and others when he was in his twenties, later established his own artistic lineage, whose members endeavored to meld Japanese painting styles with elements of Western realism. While his handling of the trees and rocks follows a standard Japanese approach to landscape, his treatment of Jurōjin’s facial features exhibits a characteristic interest in naturalism.

Artist

Gan Ku (Kishi Ganku)

Date

1838

Medium

Hanging scroll; ink and color on silk

Culture

Japan

Department

Asian Art

Credit line

Mary and Cheney Cowles Collection, Gift of Mary and Cheney Cowles, 2018