Eight Drunken Hermits

Based on a verse entitled the “Eight Drunken Hermits,” by the Chinese Tang poet Du Fu (712–770), this screen depicts four hermits drinking, and presumably its paired screen (now lost) showed the other four.
Kaihō Yūshō’s (1533–1615) special method of depicting people using minimal brush strokes emulates the “sketch style” (Ch. xie yi, J. genpitsutai) of the Southern Song painter Liang Kai (1130–1210) and in Japan was dubbed, “bag figure brushwork” (J. fukuro jinbutsu). This amazing piece is a quintessential example of sumi-e, or ink painting. The inked strokes rhythmically punctuate the energetic movement in the picture; intensity flows from the forms; the expressions of the drunks are individualistically delineated; and framing these, the rocks and pine tree have a rounded softness created through the effective use of shading.
From the inscription on the left side, one can infer that Kamei Korenori (1557–1612), lord of Kano castle in Inaba province (modern Tottori prefecture), commissioned this screen on the third day of the tenth month in 1602 (Keichō 7). Since very few of Yūshō’s paintings have verifiable production dates, this screen provides a valuable standard for establishing the dating of his other works.