Shirakura Nihō (1896–1974) 
Waterfall 
Japan, late 1920s 
Hanging scroll; ink and color on silk 
Gift of Terry Welch, 2021 (2021-03-072)

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In his youth, Nihō first studied Western drawing and watercolor, and he made the remarkable accomplishment of having Western-style oil paintings accepted in the annual national exhibition as a teenager. However, in his early twenties he moved to Kyoto and developed a name as a literati artist. While Nihō’s medium was traditional, he was one of the leading proponents of the New Nanga movement to contemporize literati painting in the 1920s, and his works were considered daring, even controversial. For instance, the dramatically thick application of ink and heavy weighting of the foreground rocks and pine, sharply contrasted with the waterfall in the background only faintly indicated by delicately textured washes, is without precedent in the literati tradition up to that point.