The Mountain Path At Utsu Analysis

The Mountain Path at Utsu and the Autumn Festival were both created during the Edo period, which lasted from 1615 to 1868 C.E. During this time period, the capital shifted from Kyoto to Edo, or today's modern Tokyo. The Edo period also represents a movement in society away from a strict hierarchical system, where the samurai class held less influence on the arts. Instead, the artisans and merchants "were free to reap the economic and social benefits of this prosperous age." Since, there was no ongoing war in Japan, the samurai class could only fill certain jobs, this let the middle class citizens gain more wealth than the samurais. This time also marked a shift away from outside influence, as it was isolated in 1638 C.E. from foreigners entering …show more content…
The Mountain Path at Utsu, for instance, was based after The Tales of Ise poem from chapter nine, which states, "Beside Mount Utsu / In Suruga / I can see you / Neither waking / Nor, alas, even in my dreams." The main character in The Tales of Ise is a courtier, who has been having difficulty finding love, and is exiled to the eastern provinces. An individual can understand why Roshu would have picked this subject, as he was expelled from the capital from his father's crime of bribery and fraud in the government mint. One can see this theme in the Mountain Path at Utsu, as a man "encounters a Buddhist monk travelling in the opposite direction. He asks the monk to deliver this poem to a woman he left behind in the capital." Other than the Buddhist monk walking into the distance, the man is alone among nature to contemplate his thoughts. Although this poem was not included on this screen, one can recognize Mount Utsu through large mounds that grow into one another. Tiaga, however, incorporated the poem he based Autumn Festival in the center of his screen. He took his subject matter from a Tang dynasty poet, Wang Jia who wrote, "At the foot of Ohu-shan, rice and millet are ripe, / Pigs are in their pens, chickens in their coops, / and the door to the house is half-ajar. / In the evening, the mulberry leaves cast long shadows, / and the Autumn Festival is now over. / To every household, its man comes home tipsy on his …show more content…
For instance, the Mountain Path at Utsu takes on a less realistic depiction of objects on the screen. Instead, all of the forms displaying nature are softened and rounded with no clear outline in a more decorative manner. Color takes the precedence in this screen over contour lines. Roshu ultilized a technique called tarashikomi, which ink is applied to an already wet surface. One can see this applied with the two-toned pink flowers on the mountains, and along the hilly mountains, as paint seems to drip down. This technique creates a smudge-like area on the screen, which is similar to using ink washes to tone down an area in a painting. Tiaga, however, follows the literati tradition, which focuses on brush strokes. For instance, Tiaga is often described as emphasizing " brush-dotted textures, and a rolling, rollicking rhythm runs through nearly all of his pictures, implying an extroverted good humor." One can see these dotted textures in the foliage along the mountains and the leaves in the trees. Unlike more traditional literati painting that would have been in monochrome, Tiaga introduces "occasional dots of darker and wetter ink, and small areas touched with ruby red and emerald green colors, enliven this otherwise dry, airy landscape." These harsh lines demonstrate the autumn season to serve a decorative