context: painting > great schools > rimpa > Ogata brothers

Ogata Korin, 1658-1716

Red and White Plum Trees, two screens by Ogata Korin (sorry the photographs are so different)

I'm not sure how it happened that an artist who came along so long after Koetsu and Sotatsu gave his name to the movement, but that's apparently the case. Theo Lesoualc'h says that Japanese critics regard Korin as their most Japanese painter. I wouldn't put too much faith in Lesoualc'h, and I'm not sure what it means if it is true. Korin is a spectacular painter, and one of extraordinary compositional and design daring, as can be seen by the pair of screens here, and the Cranes screen on the page above. The framing, the balance of colours, everything about the composition, the depiction of the water, the tree on the right, the bending crane, it's all breathtaking and brave and wholly successful.

Ogata Korin's lacquerwork

Ogata Korin the prankster