Ask the Scholar

Aoki Shukuya was a top student of painter Ike Taiga and took responsibility for Taiga’s stylistic legacy. A painting album by Taiga, part of which survives today in Kyoto in hanging scroll format, served as the source for this painting by Shukuya and the matching designs from a set of wood-block–printed volumes published in 1804. The postscript to the books, written and carved by the scholar Minagawa Kien (皆川淇園) (1735–1807), explains that Taiga produced the original album for his wife and fellow painter Tokuyama Gyokuran (徳山玉瀾) (1727/28–1784).<br><br>The third volume of the wood-block–printed books contains an image of a tall mountain peak with the text “high and distant” (高遠) to its left. Shukuya’s version of this design includes additional words—he wrote that the design represents the method of Wu Daozi (吳道子) (Chinese, about 689–759). Revered as one of the most important Tang-dynasty painters, Wu Daozi’s work is known today only through copies.