Gazing at a Waterfall (early 1500s): Art, History and Details

Gazing at a Waterfall (early 1500s) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection. The museum's creator attribution is Sōami (Japanese, d. 1525).

The work and its context

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

Chinese poet Li Bai’s (701–762) poem “Gazing at a Waterfall on Mount Lu” is about experiencing the vastness of the galaxy in relationship to one’s own being. Japanese Zen monk-poet Keijo Shūrin (1440–1518) identified Li’s poem as the inspiration for Japanese painter Geiami’s (1431–1485) work Gazing at a Waterfall, in the collection of the Nezu Museum, which features sharp brushstrokes and bright colors. In contrast, this album leaf’s painter, Geiami’s son Sōami, took a more delicate approach to the theme. The waterfall and the pair watching it frame the mist rising from the water at the center of the image.

Object facts

• Title: Gazing at a Waterfall
• Date: early 1500s
• Creator attribution: Sōami (Japanese, d. 1525)
• Culture: Japan, Muromachi period (1392–1573)
• Type: Painting
• Technique: Album leaf mounted as a hanging scroll; ink and slight color on paper
• Dimensions: Painting: 29 x 30.1 cm (11 7/16 x 11 7/8 in.); Mounted with knobs: 113 x 47.6 cm (44 1/2 x 18 3/4 in.)
• Collection: ASIAN - Hanging scroll
• Department: Japanese Art
• Accession number: 1977.30

A detail from the museum

The setting of this painting is historical China, as evidenced by the clothing and hairstyles of the two people appreciating the waterfall.

Collection credit

Purchase from the J. H. Wade Fund

Further reading listed by the museum

• Lee, Sherman E., Michael R. Cunningham, and Ursula Korneitchouk. One Thousand Years of Japanese Art (650-1650): From the Cleveland Museum of Art: Catalogue. New York: Japan Society, 1981.
• Cunningham, Michael. “Notes on the Artist Sōami and a Lost Painting.” Monumenta Serica 43 (1995): 405–438.
• Tōyō kaiga no seika: tokubetsuten: Kurīvurando Bijutsukan no korekushon kara [東洋絵画の精華: 特别展: クリーヴラント美術館のコレクションから= Highlights of Asian painting from the Cleveland Museum of Art]. Nara, Japan: Nara National Museum, 1998.

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.