Landscape (mid-1500s): Art, History and Details

Landscape (mid-1500s) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection. The museum's creator attribution is Kano Motonobu (Japanese, c. 1476–1559); Gesshū Jukei (Japanese, 1470–1533).

The work and its context

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

The large red tripod-shaped seal on this painting is that of Kano Motonobu, head of the Kano school atelier in Kyoto that served the shogun. Gesshū Jukei, a longtime resident of the Zen temple Kenninji in Kyoto, inscribed the poem. The two are known to have worked together on at least one other occasion. The poem describes an intimate meeting of dear friends, a suitable theme for a work that was likely given as a gift to an esteemed associate, perhaps weary of the politics of life in the capital. In either fine weather or during the rainy season the mountain’s color is pale. A friend visits, rowing his boat while reciting a poem. Tonight we’ll drink together at the inn on the river. Across, on the other side of the river is a house with people living in it, but there is nothing to drink there.

Object facts

• Title: Landscape
• Date: mid-1500s
• Creator attribution: Kano Motonobu (Japanese, c. 1476–1559); Gesshū Jukei (Japanese, 1470–1533)
• Culture: Japan, Muromachi period (1392–1573)
• Type: Painting
• Technique: Hanging scroll; ink on paper
• Dimensions: Mounted: 104.7 x 48.9 cm (41 1/4 x 19 1/4 in.)
• Collection: ASIAN - Hanging scroll
• Department: Japanese Art
• Accession number: 2015.518

Collection credit

Gift from the Collection of George Gund III

Further reading listed by the museum

• Kyōto National Museum. Muromachi jidai no Kanō-ha: gadan seiha e no michi: tokubetsu tenrankai 室町時代の狩野派 : 画壇制覇への道 : 特别展覧会 = The Kano school in the Muromachi period: special exhibition. [Kyoto]: Kyōto Kokuritsu Hakubutsukan, 1996.
• Cunningham, Michael R., Shinʼichi Miyajima, and Yūji Yamashita. Ink Paintings and Ash-Glazed Ceramics: Medieval Calligraphy, Painting, and Ceramic Art from Japan and Korea. Cleveland, OH: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 2000.
• Vilbar, Sinéad. “Acquisition Highlights 2016: Japanese Art.” Cleveland Art: Cleveland Museum of Art Members Magazine 57, no. 2 (March/April 2017): 18–19.

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.