Untitled

Rai San’yō 頼山陽

19th century · Hanging scroll; ink on paper · Asian Art

One of Japan’s most famous landscapes, the mountains of Yoshino covered with pink and white clouds of flowering cherry trees, is given a novel treatment by the distinguished historian and calligrapher Rai Sanyō, who adapted the venerated Chinese ink landscape mode associated with the Yuan literati painter Huang Gongwang (1269–1354). The inscriptions above this workman-like rendition of a mountain landscape illuminate the personal and cultivated nature of this painting, which commemorates a visit he made to Yoshino in the spring of 1827 with his uncle Kyōhei and his mother, Baishi, both eminent Confucian scholars. Sanyō's inscription at the right expresses his joy in fulfilling his dream of viewing the blossoms but clouds as he muses on the failed attempt by the emperor Go-Daigo (1319–1338) to restore imperial rule, evoking his Yoshino court in exile, and a neglected grave deep in the mountains. At left, Baishi's inscription in feminine Japanese Kana script reflects her joy in seeing the blossoms once more in old age.

Artist

Rai San’yō 頼山陽

Date

19th century

Medium

Hanging scroll; ink on paper

Culture

Japan

Department

Asian Art

Credit line

Purchase, Bequest of John L. Cadwalader, Gift of Mrs. Russell Sage, and Charles Stewart Smith Collection, Gift of Mrs. Charles Stewart Smith, Charles Stewart Smith Jr., and Howard Caswell Smith, in memory of Charles Stewart Smith, by exchange, 1984