Cranes, one of a pair

From his sixtieth year (1776) Jakuchu was engaged in a series of projects that involved the erection of large ensembles of Buddhist stone sculptures. Evidence of this devotional activity is seen in the partially extant group of five-hundred rakan (arahats) statues placed on a hillside adjacent to Sekihoji, a Zen temple in Fukakusa just to the south of Kyoto. Jakuchu funded these projects through sale of his paintings and it is from this period until his death that the largest number of his ink paintings were produced.

Jakuchu's fascination with the diptych format extends to his work in the folding screen format of twelve joined panels. Jakuchu frequently eschewed a unified composition extending across the surface of a pair of screens and opted, instead for six pairs of compositionally linked images set on to a screen. This particular screen style was called oshi-e hari byobu (single panels painted then affixed to a folding screen format). In some instances, such paintings have been subsequently separated from their screen format and remounted as single paintings or as diptychs.