Kōrin was the foremost decorative painter of the Edo period, and his art is credited with bridging the worlds of the old aristocratic imperial city of Kyoto and the Tokugawa shogunate’s brash new bourgeois military capital at Edo (Tokyo). Born the son of a wealthy Kyoto textile merchant, Kōrin led a privileged life and only turned to painting for a livelihood when the family fortune was exhausted. A world of easy grace is reflected in the elegant sophisticated paintings of sunlit corn and moonlit pampas grass on this fan. A talent for pattern and composition coalesced in Kōrin’s personal style, which is noted for forceful abstract design and the keen observation of nature that is so evident here.
Artist Ogata Korin, Japanese, 1658-1716
Title
  • Corn and Pampas Grass: Corn
Date between late 17th and early 18th century
Medium ink and color paint on gold paper
Dimensions Overall: 55 1/4 × 18 7/8 inches (140.3 × 47.9 cm)
Image: 23 3/4 × 12 3/4 inches (60.3 × 32.4 cm)
Installed: 56 inches × 18 7/8 inches × 3/4 inches (142.2 × 47.9 × 1.9 cm)
Credit Line Founders Society Purchase, Stoddard Fund for Asian Art and Acquisitions Fund
Accession Number 78.66.1
Department Asian Art
Not On View
Signed Signed, left center, within a triangle formed by the plant stalk and leaves: Ogata Korin
Marks Stamp, in red, lower left: [artist's seal]
Inscriptions Calligraphy, lower left
(Mayuyama and Co., Ltd., Tokyo, Japan);
1978-present, purchase by the Detroit Institute of Arts (Detroit, Michigan, USA)
University Ligget Antiques Show. Exh. cat., University Liggett School. Grosse Pointe Woods, 1979, pp. 75, 79.

Bulletin of the DIA 59, nos. 2/3 (1981): pp. 57-65, p. 58 (ill.).

"Family Art Game," DIA Advertising Supplement. Detroit News/Detroit Free Press, April 18, 1982, p. 33 (ill.).

Kobayashi, Tadashi. Rimpa Paintings, Vol II: Seasonal Flowering Plants. Japan, 1990, p. 190 (ill.).

Emura, Tomoko. “Rinpa Artists and the Samurai Class.” Bulletin of the DIA 88, no. 1/4 (2014): pp. 76, 81 (figs. 8-9).