This sweeping vertical landscape by Fukuda Kodojin captures the sensation of wind moving through a mountainside of pines, conveyed not through literal depiction but by the charged rhythms of the brush. Kodōjin builds the mass of the forest with layered dots and broken ink strokes—an almost calligraphic “texturing” that seems to quiver with motion—while faint mineral washes in rose and grey lend the scene a hushed, dreamlike atmosphere. A small thatched hermitage, barely discernible within the density of foliage, serves as a quiet point of human presence: the reclusive scholar secluded yet attuned to the breath of the natural world. Pigment on paper in a silk border with solid ivory rollers (these will be changed for export). The scroll is 46.3 x 202 cm (18-1/4 x 79-1/2 inches), enclosed in the original signed wooden box and is in excellent condition.
A possible translation of the poem is:
Having become one who dwells in the mountains,
I wander free, parted from the world’s entanglements.
Caressing the pines, I forget even the setting of the sun,
and seated upon a rock, I listen to the flowing spring.
Poetry reaches a realm beyond words,
and the zither’s music sounds though no strings are touched.
In this unburdened stillness I find a true accord,
so complete that there is no longer any need to seek immortals.
Fukuda Kodojin (1865-1944) was an eccentric self-taught artist, his status as a poet, calligrapher and literati artist has reached legendary status. Born at a time of great change (4 years before the final fall of the Edo Government), he lived through the westernization of Meiji, Taisho Democracy, the rise of Imperialism and final defeat of the Showa eras. He was part of a small group of artists existing outside conventional circles in pre-war Japan. He moved to a village outside of Kyoto in 1901, where he supported himself and his family by privately tutoring those who wished to learn Chinese-style poetry. Kodojin was simply a scholar. His poetry, painting, and calligraphy all stem from a life-long cultivation of the mind. He was said to have taken the time just before his death to destroy the large portion of his own remaining work, leaving only that which must have met some personal criteria. Kodōjin’s paintings and calligraphy survive mainly in private collections, but significant works can be found in the collections of the British Museum, Freer Sackler Gallery of the Smithsonian Institute, Honolulu Museum of Art, Houston Museum of Fine Arts, Kumamoto Prefectural Museum of Art, Minneapolis Institute of Art, Museo Kaluz, New York Metropolitan Museum of Art, Portland Art Museum, Seattle Art Museum, St. Louis Art Museum, Tanabe City Museum of Art and Wakayama Prefectural Museum of Art among others including such well known Private collections as the Cowles Collection, Hakutakuan Collection, Manyoan Collection and Welch Collection. Twenty five paintings by the artist formed a private exhibition (from the Gitter-Yelen collection) at the New Orleans Museum of Art in 2000. In recent years, exhibitions such as The Last Master of the Literati Tradition: Fukuda Kodōjin (Minneapolis Institute of Art, 2023) have brought renewed attention to his achievement. For more on his life see the book Old Taoist, or Unexplored Avenues of Japanese Painting.
