Salmon

A coarse rope hangs from the top of the narrow canvas, and a salted salmon is suspended head up. In the upper half of the body the flesh has been cut away, showing the streaks of red flesh and white fat. The lower half retains silver skin and scales, and the tail is dried and curled. The background is plain brown, and only the form and texture of the salmon emerge.

Each scale, the dry texture of the skin and even the cut surface of the flesh are carefully distinguished in oil paint. To paint a familiar kitchen food this faithfully was itself a new attempt in Japanese painting of the time.

Takahashi Yuichi studied Western painting at the Bansho Shirabesho painting bureau of the Edo shogunate and was a painter who worked to spread oil painting in the early Meiji period. Yuichi painted salmon many times, and other versions exist, including one in the Yamagata Museum of Art. This work of about Meiji 10 (1877) is painted in oil on paper.

The work is held by the Tokyo University of the Arts and was designated an Important Cultural Property in 1967. Through its way of painting by closely observing nature and copying it, it is positioned as a work that marks the starting point of modern Japanese art.