Nakahara Yōtō (中原甕塘): Literati Painter of the Meiji Period
Nakahara Yōtō (中原甕塘) was a Japanese painter of the Nanga school, Japanese literati painting, and was active during the Meiji period. In the artist ranking lists of those years – overviews modeled on sumō ranking lists, which brought order to the trade for collectors and dealers – he is listed among the painters of literati painting.
Nanga in the Meiji Period
Nanga was under pressure during this era. State art policy initially promoted the Western style of painting, later a newly defined Nihonga; literati painting, with its ties to Chinese models and to a classical ideal of education, was regarded by some as obsolete. It nevertheless persisted, sustained by painters such as Yōtō, who worked for a circle of collectors to whom precisely this scholarly character mattered.
Sparrow and Wisteria: A Motif of Late Spring
The wisteria blooms after the cherry blossoms have passed, clearly assigning a picture to late spring. In literati painting it rarely appears alone: usually a sparrow sits among the hanging clusters or on a willow branch beside them — a contrast between heavy, drooping blossom and light, restless bird, which the Nanga resolves with a loose brush and little color. Hanging scrolls with this motif were part of the fixed rotating stock of a household that furnished its tokonoma according to the calendar.
