shinkei-zu　真景図

KEY WORD :　art history / paintings

Lit. true view pictures. A type of landscape painting based on naturalistic depiction of a particular place. The term dates from the mid Edo period (18c) when this type of landscape was developed by *nanga 南画 painters. The most famous is the "True View of Mt. Asama" (Asamayama shinkei-zu 朝熊嶽真景図) by Ike no Taiga 池大雅 (1723-76). Taiga's friend Kuwayama Gyokushuu 桑山玉洲 (1746-99) discusses the theory behind shinkei-zu in his KAIJI HIGEN 絵事鄙言 or "Humble Words on Painting." "True view pictures" also appear in Western-style painting (*youfuuga 洋風画) and most notably in the work of Aoudou Denzen 亜欧堂田善 (1748-1822), as in for example the screens of the "True View of Mt. Asama" (Asamayama shinkei-zu 浅間山真景図) in the Tokyo National Museum. Athough the term is Japanese, the idea of painting real places in a relatively life-like manner has a long history in Chinese painting, dating at least from the Song painter Li Song's 李嵩 (Jp:Ri Suu, late 12c-early 13c's) depiction of the "West Lake at Hangzhou" (*Seiko 西湖) and best seen in the work of the late Ming dynasty painter Zhang Hong 張宏 (Jp: Choko 1577-1668?). In Japan, Sesshuu's 雪舟 descriptive paintings of 'Ama no hashidate-zu' 天橋立図 and 'Toufukuji ' 東福寺 (both in the Kyoto National Museum) are depictions of famous places, *meisho-e 名所絵, that show many characteristics of what was later called shinkei-zu. Conversely, Edo artists sometimes called their landscapes shinkei-zu although the depictions can hardly be called naturalistic renderings of recognizable spots. The term shinkei-zu is loosely defined and often arbitrarily applied.

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