Sparrows among Millet and Asters

In this lively autumnal scene, five sparrows romp and bicker near millet and blooming asters. The artist Geiai used almost no contour lines in this work, which is quite distinct from his other painting displayed nearby, opting instead for the so-called “boneless” technique that relied on ink wash rather than lines to define the volume and mass of motifs. Little is known about the artist, who impressed a red seal reading Geiai at lower right. He may have been active in Kyoto at the end of the 1400s, and the handful of surviving paintings bearing his seals reveals his fluency in a number of styles of Chinese bird-and-flower painting introduced to Japan in the 1300s and 1400s.