長澤蘆雪筆　渡唐天神図|Tenjin Traveling to China

Nagasawa Rosetsu 長澤蘆雪

1787–88 · Hanging scroll; ink and color on paper · Asian Art

This painting depicts the statesman-poet-scholar Sugawara Michizane (845–903) as Tenjin, the deified being he became following his unjust death in exile, and the calamities his angry spirit inflicted upon the imperial court in Kyoto. After his deification, Michizane was revered as a god of agriculture and patron of the falsely accused. One guise in which he is often represented is that of “Totō Tenjin,” or Tenjin on his way to China to visit a Zen Buddhist master. Rosetsu’s vision of Totō Tenjin reflects the artist’s early style, when he was strongly influenced by the deliberate, naturalistic mode of his master, Maruyama Ōkyo (1733–1795), founder of the Maruyama school.

Artist

Nagasawa Rosetsu 長澤蘆雪

Date

1787–88

Medium

Hanging scroll; ink and color on paper

Culture

Japan

Department

Asian Art

Credit line

Gift of Sue Cassidy Clark, in celebration of the Museum's 150th Anniversary, 2019