Wind God and Thunder God

Wind God and Thunder God is a pair of two-panel folding screens in which Ogata Kōrin depicts Raijin, the god of thunder and storms, and Fūjin, the god of wind, figures from Shinto belief and Japanese mythology. Painted in ink and colour on gold-leaf paper, it probably dates from around 1700, shortly before the artist's death in 1716. It is not an original invention: it closely reproduces an earlier composition by Tawaraya Sōtatsu from the seventeenth century, a model Kōrin is thought to have known. Compared with the original, the figures are more sharply defined and their faces softer, and the two deities now look at each other rather than downward. The flat colour, free line and black clouds built with the tarashikomi technique are characteristic of the Rinpa school. Placing the figures at the outer edges of each screen gives the composition a sense of breadth. The work matters as an emblem of Rinpa, and later versions by Sakai Hōitsu and Suzuki Kiitsu continued its influence.

Painter

Ogata Kōrin

Date

1800

Dimensions

422 × 465 cm

Museum

Tokyo National Museum, Tokyo

Depicts

Raijin, Fūjin

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