The autumn moon adds a temporal element to this stylized rendition of one of the most familiar conventions in Japanese ink painting: a riverside pavilion with lofty pines silhouetted against an expanse of mist and craggy mountain peaks in the distance.The painting reflects the style of Motonobu (1476–1559) in its relatively heavy coloring, schematic brushwork, and compressed spatial recession, in which the middle ground is obscured by a scalloped band of opaque mist that separates the river scene from the distant mountains. These features also characterize work from the eastern region of Japan. Faint traces of two seals used by Maejima Sōyū are found on the lower left side of the painting and enable its attribution. The painting may originally have been part of a set pasted on a folding screen.
