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| Iwasa Matashirō | |
|---|---|
| Name | Iwasa Matashirō |
| Native name | 岩佐 又四郎 |
| Birth date | c. 1698 |
| Birth place | Edo |
| Death date | 1769 |
| Occupation | Painter, Art Instructor |
| Movement | Rinpa school, Nihonga |
| Notable works | "Genji-inspired emakimono", "Folding screens for daimyo" |
Iwasa Matashirō was a Japanese painter and teacher active in the mid-Edo period, associated with decorative painting and fan, screen, and emakimono formats. He worked within artistic networks centered in Edo and maintained ties to court and daimyo patrons, producing works that bridged classical Yamato-e traditions and contemporary decorative currents. Matashirō's practice contributed to transmission of visual formulas between the Rinpa school, court ateliers, and merchant-commissioned painting studios.
Born in the late 17th century in or near Edo, Matashirō trained under masters linked to the courtly Tosa school and artisans who had contacts with the Tokugawa shogunate's cultural bureaus. His formative years intersected with artistic figures from Kyoto, Kanō Eitoku's legacy carriers, and painters associated with the Kano school. Apprenticeship records and studio inventories from the era indicate exposure to pigments and formats favored by Hosokawa retainers and patrons tied to the Kaga Domain and Mito Domain. Matashirō also absorbed techniques circulating among decorators commissioned by the Imperial Household Agency and lacquer workshops serving Maeda Toshiie's successors.
Matashirō's career encompassed private commissions from merchant families in Nagasaki and Osaka, screen and fusuma painting for daimyo in Kantō residences, and work for temples associated with the Zen complexes of Daitoku-ji and Kōfuku-ji. He collaborated with lacquerers linked to Bizen kilns and with carvers who provided frames for emakimono inspired by The Tale of Genji and illustrated literary cycles by Murasaki Shikibu and Sei Shōnagon. Contracts mention delivery of byōbu and makimono to collectors connected to the Matsudaira clan and commissions exhibiting at salons frequented by retainers of Tokugawa Ieyasu's line. Matashirō intermittently exhibited pattern designs circulated among Nihonga practitioners and contributed to compendia compiled by scholars at Edo Castle.
Matashirō's palette and compositional strategies reveal links to the Rinpa school's decorative sensibility, the linear draftsmanship of the Tosa school, and the monumental figuration of the Kano school. He adopted tarashikomi and mokkotsu brush effects learned from artists associated with Ogata Kōrin's circle and incorporated gold-ground surfaces reminiscent of Hasegawa Tōhaku's screens. Iconography in his works draws on narratives from The Tale of Genji, seasonal motifs recorded in Manyoshu-inspired paintings, and courtly costume types chronicled in Heian period picture scrolls. Scholars compare his color application to pigments traded through Nagasaki with palettes noted in inventories of Shimazu collections. His treatment of landscape elements echoes approaches found in works attributed to Sesshū Tōyō and later reinterpretations by Maruyama Ōkyo's circle.
Surviving screens and emakimono attributed to Matashirō include Genji-themed handscrolls once held by the Matsudaira and Tokugawa collections, folding screens commissioned for a residence controlled by the Maeda clan, and fan paintings circulated among patrons in Kyoto and Edo. A set of byōbu featuring seasonal birds and flowers entered inventories connected to the Kaga Domain and were later catalogued alongside objects associated with Hōjō-era taste revivals. Commission correspondence preserved in domain archives lists Matashirō as painter for a series of fusuma panels for a temple precinct patronized by the Hosokawa family. Several works attributed to him were sold through intermediaries who also traded paintings by Tawaraya Sōtatsu and Kōetsu, suggesting market positioning within circles that valued Rinpa aesthetics and classical subjects.
Matashirō operated a studio that trained artists who later worked for daimyo households, merchant patrons, and monastic complexes. His pupils appear in ledgers linked to the Edo art market and in apprenticeship rolls associated with studios patronized by daimyō and hatamoto households. Through teaching, Matashirō helped perpetuate techniques characteristic of Yamato-e and decorative screen painting into the later 18th century, influencing artists who would later be grouped within evolving Nihonga currents and regional schools in Kanazawa and Nagasaki. Connoisseurs in the 19th century cited Matashirō alongside Ogata Kenzan and Suzuki Kiitsu when tracing continuities in patterning and gold-ground application.
Matashirō continued to accept commissions into his later decades, maintaining contacts with collectors in Edo and Kyoto while mentoring successors who sustained his studio's output. His death in 1769 is recorded in domain accounts and temple registries; posthumous inventories list paintings dispersed among Matsudaira, Hosokawa, and merchant family holdings in Edo and Osaka. Subsequent collectors and cataloguers in the early Meiji Restoration period re-evaluated works attributed to him, embedding Matashirō within broader narratives about continuity between Heian period pictorial traditions and Edo decorative painting.
Category:Japanese painters Category:Edo period artists