Eight Views of Xiao-Xiang (1500s): Art, History and Details

Eight Views of Xiao-Xiang (1500s) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection. The museum's creator attribution is Sesson Shūkei (Japanese, c. 1492–c. 1577).

The work and its context

The museum's open-access catalogue describes the work:

Eight Views of the Xiao and Xiang Rivers can be traced to 11th-century Chinese poems and paintings, the depiction of which had also become popular among Korean and Japanese painters. Xiao-Xiang refers to the region in present-day Hunan province where the Xiao and Xiang rivers converge. Few painters of the Eight Views had in fact seen the scenery; rather, they were trying to portray in ink and wash the lyrical qualities of dim light and a misty atmosphere typical of that region. Each of the poetic titles suggests a time of day, a season, or specific atmospheric conditions—subjects that challenged the abilities of the most talented artists. In this miniature painting (shukuzu) of the Muromachi period, Japanese Zen monk and painter Shukei Sesson depicted all eight views featured in Chinese prototypes: Wild Geese Descending to Sandbar; Returning Sails Off a Distant Coast; Mountain Market in Clearing Mist; River and Sky in Evening Snow; Autumn Moon over Dongting Lake; Night Rain on the Xiao and Xiang; Evening Bell from Mist-Shrouded Temple; and Fishing Village in Evening Glow.

Object facts

• Title: Eight Views of Xiao-Xiang
• Date: 1500s
• Creator attribution: Sesson Shūkei (Japanese, c. 1492–c. 1577)
• Culture: Japan, Muromachi period (1392–1573)
• Type: Painting
• Technique: handscroll; ink on paper
• Dimensions: Overall: 15.7 x 289.5 cm (6 3/16 x 114 in.)
• Collection: ASIAN - Handscroll
• Department: Japanese Art
• Accession number: 1979.77

Collection credit

Gift of Sherman E. Lee in memory of John D. Rockefeller, 3rd

Further reading listed by the museum

• Tsutomu Kameda 亀田孜. Sesson 雪村, Complete Collection of Japanese Painting, v. 8. Tōkyō: Shūeisha, 1980.
• Akazawa, Eiji, Akio Takamizawa, and Junji Nakajima. Muromachi no suibokuga: Sesshū, Sesson, Motonobu [室町の水墨画 : 雪舟/雪村/元信 = Sesshu, Sesson, Motonobu : ink monochrome painting of Muromachi period]. Tōkyō: Gakushū Kenkyūsha, 1980.
• Lee, Sherman E. “The Year in Review for 1979.” The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art, vol. 67, no. 3, 1980, pp. 58–99.

View the collection record

See the museum's photographs and full catalogue entry. Catalogue text is reproduced from the Cleveland Museum of Art's open-access data, with HTML formatting removed. This object and its supplied image are designated CC0.