長澤蘆州筆　月下遊舟図|Boat under the Moon

Nagasawa Roshū 長澤蘆洲

early 19th century · Hanging scroll; ink and color on silk · Asian Art

A turbulent sea, a rocky foreground, and layers of fin-shaped mountains receding into the background are the principal pictorial elements of this painting. A boatman poles his vessel past the dangerous current and foreground rocks. Roshū, student and adopted son of the renowned and individualistic artist Nagasawa Rosetsu (1754–1799), whose works are exhibited nearby, demonstrates his skill with the brush as well as a sense of drama, perhaps encouraged by his untrammeled teacher. Roshū was an artist in the refined Maruyama-Shijō tradition, to which his adoptive father had initially belonged but later renounced; this painting contains only hints of Rosetsu’s vigorous and dynamic mature style.

Artist

Nagasawa Roshū 長澤蘆洲

Date

early 19th century

Medium

Hanging scroll; ink and color on silk

Culture

Japan

Department

Asian Art

Credit line

Mary and Cheney Cowles Collection, Gift of Mary and Cheney Cowles, 2019