Existing comment:
Pumpkin Vine and Horsefly
ca 1825-33
Hokusai painted this small work after he reached the age of sixty. Its composition, brushwork, and color demonstrate perfect technical control. The inclusion of a flying insect resembles the formula that Hokusai adopted in his "Large Flowers" print series in the 1830s. This painting was among the first group of Hokusai works purchased by Charles Lang Freer in 1898. Freer had already developed a taste for the simple compositions and pleasing colors of paintings by artists such as Ogata Korin (1658-1716), who introduced a style of painting from Kyoto to Edo in the early eighteenth century. |