Winter Landscape
Seasonal landscapes in a Chinese style evoking summer and winter flank an imaginary portrait of Shennong (Japanese: Shinnō), the legendary Chinese emperor and reputed inventor of agriculture and herbal medicine. The landscapes, markedly asymmetrical in keeping with the Chinese Southern Song (1127–1279) conventions, also follow the popular Japanese late medieval formula for landscapes: the summer scene features a tall waterfall with a gushing stream, while its companion is enveloped in the silence of winter snow, a solitary traveler and a single pennant denoting a wine shop as the sole signs of human presence.
The pair of landscapes (14.76.26, .28) were signed and dated by Tan’yū to his sixty-first year (1662), while the Shennong portrait (14.76.27), according to the signature, was brushed three years later, when the artist was sixty-four. Following the custom of having landscapes flank religious paintings to create a triptych, this set was brought together by a former owner
The pair of landscapes (14.76.26, .28) were signed and dated by Tan’yū to his sixty-first year (1662), while the Shennong portrait (14.76.27), according to the signature, was brushed three years later, when the artist was sixty-four. Following the custom of having landscapes flank religious paintings to create a triptych, this set was brought together by a former owner
Artwork Details
- 狩野探幽筆 神農・夏冬山水図
- Title: Winter Landscape
- Artist: Kano Tan'yū (Japanese, 1602–1674)
- Period: Edo period (1615–1868)
- Date: 1662
- Culture: Japan
- Medium: One from a set of three hanging scrolls; ink and color on silk
- Dimensions: 44 1/2 x 15 1/2 in. (113 x 39.4 cm)
- Classification: Paintings
- Credit Line: Charles Stewart Smith Collection, Gift of Mrs. Charles Stewart Smith, Charles Stewart Smith Jr., and Howard Caswell Smith, in memory of Charles Stewart Smith, 1914
- Object Number: 14.76.26
- Curatorial Department: Asian Art
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Kano Tan'yū
1665
Kano Tan'yū
mid-17th century
Kano Tan'yū
probably 17th or 18th century
Kano Tan'yū
dated 1666
Kano Tan'yū
dated 1666
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