This article discusses how creativity appears in the composition of a painting concerning Tawaraya Sotatsu's masterpiece ‘Gods of Wind and Thunder’done in the 17th century in Edo period from viewpoint of the design thinking. The design thinking is defined as the spiral flow of dynamic idea, repeating generation of the concept and restructuring of the composition toward composing a desirable figure as a design solution. Early in the 17th century in Edo period when the painting confronted with a certain state of blockage, Sotatsu adopted the method for extracting pictorial elements from predecessors' works without making original figures. It can be thought that Sotatsu regarded creativity as making novel implication, not as making new figures. Analyzing the work, it is confirmed that novel implication appears by making the ambiguity of denying and maintaining the meaning as Gods of Wind and Thunder in hierarchy. Sotatsu's artistic policy stemmed from pursuit of the ideal category of design thinking. Thus, Sotatsu's composition is located on the development of accomplishments such as Noh performance and tea ceremony originated from Zen Buddhism in Japan at the early modern age. In the main discourse the author claims that the fundamental of the design thinking is Endo-exo circulation which is the principle of life, evolution and cognition.
