Pair of byobu or folding screens in two panels, painted on silk in mineral pigments, gofun or clam shell gesso, and sumi ink, with a scene of Gifu river-fishing cormorants gathered around the cormorant baskets on the beach. Signed by the artist on the lower-left side of the left-hand screen: Eishu Ga or Painted by Eishu, and sealed twice: Eishu Gashoku or Painted in Color by Eishu, and then: Ei; and on the lower-right side of the right-hand screen again sealed twice: Eishu Gashoku or Painted in Color by Eishu, and then: Ei (Kato Eishu, the go or art name of Kato Einosuke, 1873 – 1939). With roiro mirror-polished, black lacquer frames. Taisho 5 or 1916.

These screens were painted for exhibition at the 10th Bunten in Taisho 5, and they are illustrated in the Nittenshi, volume 4, pages 370 – 371, number 42.

Kato Eishu was born in Aichi Prefecture and first studied painting in Nagoya under Okumura Sekiran. Afterwards he continued his studies under Kono Bairei at the Kyoto Municipal School of Fine Arts and Crafts. After Bairei died, Eishu become a student of Kishi Chikudo and Takeuchi Seiho. He won awards in such venues as the Kyoto City Fine Art and Crafts Exhibition (Kyoto Shi Bijutsu Kogei-hin Ten) and the National Industrial Exposition (Naikoku Kangyo Hakurankai). In 1908, he exhibited for the first time at the Bunten (the 2nd Bunten). He returned to this government-sponsored venue consistently every few years, showing at the 4th Bunten in 1910, the 6th in 1912, and the 10th in 1916. After its reorganization, he showed at the 2nd Teiten in 1920, the 7th and 8th in 1926 – 1927, the 10th in 1931, the 14th in 1933, and the Bunten Kansaten in 1936. All of these Bunten and Teiten paintings portray naturalist themes, with images of animals such as foxes, and many different birds from ducks and cormorants to hawks.

With a sophisticated naturalism, Kato Eishu paints an idyllic scene from his childhood on the banks of the Nagara River in Gifu. Fishermen famously ply the river at night in boats lit by flaming iron braziers as their trained cormorants hunt the waves. We stand back from the water’s edge on a late afternoon in late spring or early summer. Small white wildflowers line the stream. A broad diagonal of pale green water brightened with very fine gold dust runs across the top of the composition; the warm sandy beach stretches below. Among a scatter of grey-white pebbles wait the great, empty cormorant baskets with their cypress lids. About them wanders a flock of cormorants. Broad, black strokes render their feathers, while contrasting color finely details their blue eyes, yellow beaks, and soft pink or white throats. They cry, flapping their wings and crowding their storage baskets in anticipation of the evening’s catch. Across the sand, the slanting afternoon light glimmers on the sand. Dense applications of gold sunago shadow the ground, thinning where the sunlight washes the strand. By framing the scene between the calm water and the motionless baskets in the foreground, Eishu fills the painting with a feeling of quiet intimacy punctuated by the charming enthusiasm of the cormorants eager to fish.