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One monk-poet wrote that:
To locate where you live,
I merely listen
For the sound of your qin
carried in the wind.
This is, of course, a poetic exaggeration, since the sound of the qin is quiet (much more so than that of the European clavichord) but the inference of Gyokudō's great skill as a supreme musician is clear.
In about 1794, Gyokudō, now a widower, who had been receiving a stipend as a bureaucrat from the daimyo of his domain, gave up his official position (and his salary) and set out to adopt the life style of a Chinese gentleman, roaming throughout Japan with his two sons, painting, and performing on the qin, supporting himself by giving music lessons. Here is how he described himself:
Gyokudō the qin player has not one penny
But only a precious qin, a winecup, and a few paintings.
Yet whoever knows how to face the soundless strings in silence
Lives as a companion of the Emperor Fu Hsi.
Traveling all over Japan, he found many students and did much to increase the understanding of these ancient musical traditions. His interior feelings found expression in his poetry and well as in his painting.
Toward the end of his life, Gyokudō became friends with another celebrated wanderer, the painter Tanomura Chikuden (1777-1835). Like Gyokudō, Chikuden began his career in service to his daimyo, but, disillusioned with bureaucratic life, he too became an artist-recluse. Here is how Chikuden described his meeting with Gyokudō, who stayed with him in Osaka for a month.
In the winter of 1807, Gyokudō, who was skilled at the qin, met with me [at my retreat], and we lived there, eating and sleeping for more than forty days. He was then in his sixties; his hair was white and his beard long. Yet he still looked young and sang quite well; he was not bothered by the hollows where his teeth had fallen out. He was marvelous. He especially loved sake, and after he drank, he would compose short poems each of which contained the word "qin." He would also paint landscapes that were not formal but showed attractive taste. Occasionally I would compose some Chinese regulated-verse poems and Gyokudō would play the qin to harmonize with the words.
Toward the end of his life, Gyokudō went to live in Kyoto, the old imperial capital, possibly to be with his son, who married there. It was at this time that he devoted increasing energy to his painting, and the ink paintings he created, in the Chinese nanga style, are among the most admired works of their time.
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