Above a quickly brushed image of a lone figure in an abbreviated landscape setting, five poems in Chinese celebrate the philosophical and artistic ideals reflected in the life and poetry of China's most famous literatus, Su Shi (So Shoku in Japanese; 1037–1101). His art was tremendously influential in fifteenth-century Japan through the literary circles of the Gozan Zen temples, in which this poem-painting (shigajiku) was created. The episode recalled here occurred when the aged poet was in exile on the remote southern island of Hainan. Caught in sudden downpour, he borrowed a peasant's straw hat and clogs. Women and children laughed at the sight of the famous scholar dressed so outlandishly, but Su Shi's equanimity in the face of these indignities was immortalized in countless retellings, such as this series of poems. The monks who inscribed this painting, all prominent in Kyoto's Zen establishment, were members of a literary coterie at Kennin-ji temple.

• Timeline of Art History (2000–present)
  Thematic Essays

  Muromachi Period (1392–1573)

  Zen Buddhism

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  Japan, 1400–1600 A.D.
• MetPublications
  "The Arts of Japan": The Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin, v. 45, no. 1 (Summer, 1987) (1987)