Turtle

In 2016 Te Papa acquired three historical Japanese paintings: a small ukiyo-e painting of a rat dressed as a daimyō or feudal lord (Te Papa 2016-0008-64) and two sumi-e ink paintings in the Chinese style. Tastes and practices in the visual arts of Japan had long drawn on inspirational precedents in Chinese visual culture – nowhere more evident than in the development of Japanese calligraphy and sumi-e ink painting.

The more historically remarkable of the two, attributed to the major painter Kanō Tsunenobu, depicts mythological beasts comprising a longma, dragon and phoenix (Te Papa 2016-0008-54). But this sumi-e - surely the more charming - witnesses a dragon god finding a complementary place in the theme of this evocative composition of a swimming ‘minogame, a legendary tortoise [sic], also symbolic of long life’ (Hockley 155), whose tail is made out of seaweed and algae. The seal suggests this is the work of an otherwise undocumented artist, Taira Natasaka, aged 75, of Kagoshima. Although perhaps an amateur painter, Taira was certainly competent – the brushstrokes here are assured and fluid, the interrelating figure and ground spaces are judiciously arranged, and the transparent tonal work is sensitively modulated. For Taira’s viewers, the turtle motif would immediately conjure the image of Urashima Tarō, the fisherman who saved the life of a turtle. The turtle carried him below the waves to Ryūgū-jō, ‘Dragon Palace Castle’, where she revealed her identity as Toyotama-hime, ‘Luminous Pearl Princess’, ancestor of Japan’s legendary first emperor, Jimmu, and the daughter of the dragon king and ruler of the seas, Watatsumi or Ryūjin. Urashima remained at the palace for centuries, before returning to his homeand perishing. The verse in this work is difficult to read, but a complementary poem by Inoya Tsukihito emphasises associations with longevity, and the folk belief that turtles live for 10,000 years:

mannen no            Turtles set free

yowai wa manto    crawl auspiciously

tawamurete           towards a shrine,

ehō mairi no          and now can play together

hau hanachigane     for ten thousand years

Sources:

David Bell, 'Floating world at Te Papa: the Heriot collection', Tuhinga, 30 (2019), pp. 56-81.

Allen Hockley, The prints of Isoda Koryūsai (Seattle and London, 2003).

Dr Mark Stocker   Curator, Historical International Art   May 2019