図版解説　川上冬崖の樹木図［長野　矢島武氏蔵］

KAWAKAMI, Tōgai, (1827-1881) is a literati painter who was active from the end of the Edo Period to the beginning of the Meiji Era, and was a forerunner of modern Western style oil painting in Japan. The author once wrote a paper on his oil painting in No. 79 of this journal and mentioned that his oil painting was very rare, chiefly discussing two of his oil paintings in the imperial possession, “Kayabe Pass in Hokkaidō” (fig. 1; referred to as “ Landscape of Hokkaidō” in the previous paper) and “Ainu Family Life”. These two works were unfortunately destroyed in an air raid in 1945 when they were under repair in a shop in Tokyo. Recently the author noticed two paintings which are supposed to have been sketches for “Kayabe Pass in Hokkaidō”. One is “Trees”, owned by Mr. YAJIMA, Takeshi, in Nagano City (Pl. I), and the other is “Landscape ”, kept in a private collection in Nagano City (Pl. II), the lattar was exhibited in the “Exhibition of Tōgai Kawakami” at the Shinano Art Museum a few years ago. The former, which the author titles “Trees” here, is a water colour with surface finish of varnish, and the latter, titled “ Landscape”, is an oil painting. “ Trees” has two of the painter's seal marks, while “Landscape” has neither seal nor signature. The author recognizes the style of these two sketches to be of KAWAKAMI, Tōgai. “Trees” depicts two trees which seem to have been included on the right side of “Kayabe Pass in Hokkaidō”. The technique and the effect of these sketches, as well as of the above mentioned completed works, are close to the seventeenth century landscape painting style of the Netherlands. This reminds us of the fact that many oil paintings and water colour paintings were brought from Europe by UCHIDA, Masao, a subject of the Tokugawa Shogunate at the end of the Edo period. The author presumes that Dutch paintings such as those by Jacob van RUISDAEL were included among them and that KAWAKAMI, Tōgai, studied such works, for there is a close stylistic kinship between his works and those of RUISDAEL.