Rinpa School

About

Rinpa was never a workshop but a chain of admiration, its artists studying predecessors they had never met. It began in Kyoto in the early 17th century with the calligrapher and craftsman Hon'ami Kōetsu and the painter Tawaraya Sōtatsu, who revived Heian court themes in bold new forms. Sōtatsu's screens of the Wind God and Thunder God set two cavorting deities on plain gold. A century later Ogata Kōrin, whose name gives the style its label, reworked such motifs in his Irises screens, and in Edo Sakai Hōitsu and his pupil Suzuki Kiitsu revived Kōrin's manner in the 19th century.

Look for flat gold or silver leaf, simplified plants, waves and figures placed with daring asymmetry, and tarashikomi, dropping ink or pigment into a still-wet layer to create soft, pooled edges. The style moved freely between screens, fans, lacquer, textiles and the ceramics of Kōrin's brother Ogata Kenzan.