Ishikawa Shizumasa
1915 (Taishō 4)
Donated by the Homma Family
Ishikawa Shizumasa was the eldest son of Shōnai domanial samurai Ishikawa Idayū. His older brother was Ishikawa Masatsune (whose sobriquet was “Tansui” – “Fresh Water.”) Shizumasa’s own sobriquet was “Tansen,” written two ways, and he always went by “Tanun.” He studied painting and calligraphy from a young age. In 1872, he engaged in cultivating new land at Matsugaoka (modern Haguromachi, Tsuruoka City). In 1875, he left for Kagoshima alongside other former domanial samurai of the defunct Shōnai domain, learning under the famed samurai and statesman Saigō Takamori (who went by the sobriquet Nanshū). Afterwards, he was invited by the Homma family of Sakata to become a government-funded solo teacher. In 1890, he engaged in a country-wide tour presenting “The Teachings of the Late Mr. Nanshū,” compiled alongside Mitsuya Fujitarō and others. As a local artist, he painted a wide variety of works, including a portrait oil painting of Saigō Takamori, Tsurugaoka Castle (oil painting), and this “Painting of the Nanshū Mansion at Takemura (Japanese painting)”. He was the author of the written work, “Satsuma Travel Diary.”
In 1875, Shizumasa, alongside other samurai of the former Shōnai domain, visited Takemura in Kagoshima, where Saigō Takamori lived. This painting is a drawing of Saigō’s mansion as shown in Shizumasa’s 1915 “Satsuma Travel Diary,” which serves as a memoir to be passed down to future generations.