The High Gate of Lord Yu

The painting was the very first piece of work entered into the collection of the Fukuda Art Museum and it was designated as important cultural property in 1974. Watanabe Kazan (1793-1841) was a samurai warrior and a painter in the late Edo Period. He learned Western sciences and was placed in confinement in his hometown in 1840 for criticizing the conservative responses made by the shogunate to foreign countries including America and England. It was the historical event called “Bansha-no Goku,” and this excellent work of painting was created by Kazan in his last year during that event. “The High Gate of Lord Yu” is a Chinese parable described in Volume 71, “Biography of Yu Dingguo” of the Book of the Former Han. Lord Yu, who served as Judiciary Scribe in a County and Head of the Bureau of Legal Decisions (Jue Cao) in a Commandery in the era of Han, was highly revered by people for making absolutely fair judgment in legal cases and also esteemed as a person of high virtue. When the gate to his village needed to be restored, he instructed to rebuild a large and wide gate, expecting that the descendants of the family that make good deeds in private would advance in the world and prosper. This is a story painted. A figure in purple clothes depicted at the lower right appears to be Lord Yu who is seemingly giving an instruction to his vassals. It is an overhead view depicting carpenters who are building the gate at the foreground and, just outside the gage, a waterscape is spreading on the upper part of the painting. We can see that carpenters are actively working and a western dog is running around. The letter sent by Kazan to Tsubaki Chinzan (1801-1854), one of his disciples, reveals the fact that the painting was created by Kazan as a token of his gratitude to Nakajima Kaemon, an officer of town magistrate, for his conduct of fair tribunal over the event of Bansha-no Goku. Kazan was compelled by poverty to sell his paintings in order to make his living, but he heard a rumor of the shogunate reproaching that as a criminal, he had not behaved himself. For fear of any trouble that may be caused to his local lord as a result of his behavior, Kazan committed suicide on October 11 in 1841 right after completing the painting. There are signature of “The High Gate of Lord Yu by Nabe Hakuto” and a gourd-shaped seal in vermilion and a square seal in white on the lower-left corner.