Mountain Landscape

The two greatest masters of Japanese ink monochrome are Tenshō Shūbun (fl. 1414– before 1463) and Sesshū Toyo (1420–1506). But while Sesshū's life and artistic achievement have been extensively recorded and analyzed, Shūbun appears in few literary sources and his paintings are only sketchily documented.[1] What we know of his activity is that he studied with the master Josetsu (fl. late 14th–early 15th century) and that two of his pupils were Sesshū and Oguri Sōtan (1413-1481). He served as chief painter to the Ashikaga shogunate and appears to have belonged to the Ashikaga family's private temple, Tōjiji. The brief accounts of his life emphasize his talent in sculpture and in the decorative arts but only touch on his skills as a painter of Buddhist subjects and of polychrome screens. Documentation on his commissions suggests that artists employed by the shogunate were responsible for making works in a variety of media, much like artists at the Chinese court. Shūbun received commissions for both carvings and paintings. A statue of Daruma in Darumadera, Nara, to which Shūbun applied pigment is the only extant work with a certain attribution,[2] though we also know that he helped to complete a large Amida triad for Ungoji, Kyoto, now lost. In 1423, Shūbun joined an official party of monks and businessmen who went to Korea in search of a printed set of the Tripitaka, the compendium of Buddhist scriptures. It is not unlikely that he had a chance while there to study Korean paintings, as his name appears in the Korean court record.[3] Shūbun probably died before 1463; temple records for that year indicate that his stipend was given to an artist named Sōtan, and Shūbun's name does not appear again in contemporary literature.
Even more difficult than reconstructing Shūbun's life and career is identifying stylistic criteria for his oeuvre. While nearly all extant paintings presently attributed to him are landscapes, early literary references mention only his Buddhist and bird-and-flower paintings. They are executed in a variety of styles, and although some bear his signature and seals, none is unanimously accepted as genuine. If the attributions are correct, however, Shūbun may be considered the first Japanese ink painter to treat landscape as a major subject for ink monochrome.
Most Japanese landscapes of Shūbun's era are ink paintings of the type known as shigajiku (hanging scrolls with poetry and painting). The shigajiku format is tall and narrow, with more surface space devoted to the poetic inscriptions at the top than to the imaginary landscapes in ink monochrome at the bottom. The inscriptions were usually composed and written by the painter's contemporaries, monk-poets whose official position, education, and social status were superior to those of the painters. Shigajiku are characterized by a high viewpoint into the distance and a strongly asymmetrical arrangement of pictorial elements. Development of this distinctive type of composition has been attributed to Shūbun and may reflect Korean influence[4] These features can also be observed in several byōbu (folding screens) associated with Shūbun that appear to be composed of several small vertical scenes transposed from hanging scrolls and rearranged on the wider surface to form a new and larger composition. Their method of construction would suggest that at this time screen composition was still in a formative stage. One distinct feature of the landscape screens thought to be by Shūbun is the subtle hint of seasonal change from spring to winter.
The present screen, the left half of a pair of byōbu, is attributed to Shūbun. It is a copy of a small section of a handscroll ascribed to Xia Gui (fl. ca. 1195–1230), a Chinese painter of the Southern Song dynasty whose style is reflected in many works believed to be by Shūbun. Xia Gui's Streams and Mountains, Pure and Remote was copied many times by many artists, and several versions are known today. One is in the collection of the National Palace Museum, Taipei; another version, which differs slightly from the Taipei scroll, is a fragment in the Hatakeyama Memorial Museum of Fine Art, Tokyo (fig. 35).[5] The Burke screen includes nearly the entire composition in the Hatakeyama fragment, with only minor changes such as the elimination of a bridge and the addition of a massive cliff at the left that provides a strong vertical presence and defines the spatial continuity.
The screen depicts a small, peaceful village nestled beside a stream at the foot of the cliff. In the left foreground men unload goods from a boat. Two wineshops are identified by the white flags fluttering in the doorways. In one shop two gentlemen are served cups of wine; beyond them houses and haystacks are visible. At the right, a gentleman riding on a donkey and accompanied by a servant carrying an umbrella approaches the village through a mountain pass. The right screen (fig. 36), whose composition is unrelated to that of the Xia Gui, is obviously a later work, executed—perhaps as a replacement—by an early-sixteenth-century follower of Shūbun
While the screens bear no signature or seal that would suggest Shūbun's authorship, both were authenticated by Kano Yasunobu (1613–1685), who placed the certificate of attribution and his own name and hōgen seals on each one. That Yasunobu's calligraphic style on the two screens is the same suggests that they formed a pair when he examined them.
Artists of the Muromachi period generally relied on Chinese models, especially the works of Southern Song painters like Xia Gui. Indeed, scholars have always recognized in the paintings associated with Shūbun's name the notable influence of the Xia Gui style, and there is certainly evidence in support of that contention for the Burke landscape.
[Miyeko Murase 2000, Bridge of Dreams]
[1] On the life of Shūbun, see Tanaka Ichimatsu 1972; and Watanabe Hajime 1985. For documentation, see Watanabe Hajime 1985, pp. 92–94; for an English summary, see Y. Shimizu and Wheelwright 1976, p. 116, n. 11. For other documentation, see Kannon gyoki 1944; Inryōken nichiroku 1978–79; and Watanabe Hajime 1985, pp. 95–109.
[2] Miyajima Shin'ichi 1994, p. 79.
[3] Chosðn wangjo sillok 1955–58, vol. 2, pp. 575–77.
[4] J. Matsushita Takaaki and Tamamura Takeji 1974, pp. 41–44.
[5] For the Taipei version, see Fong and Watt 1996, pl. 87.

Mary and Jackson Burke Foundation , New York (until 2015; donated to MMA)

New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "Japanese Art: Selections from the Mary and Jackson Burke Collection," November 7, 1975–January 4, 1976.

Seattle Art Museum. "Japanese Art: Selections from the Mary and Jackson Burke Collection," March 10–May 1, 1977.

Minneapolis Institute of Arts. "Japanese Art: Selections from the Mary and Jackson Burke Collection," June 1–July 17, 1977.

New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "Japanese Ink Paintings from the Collection of Mary and Jackson Burke," February 15–June 25, 1989.

New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "Masterpieces of Japanese Art from The Mary Griggs Burke Collection," March 30–June 25, 2000.

New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "Great Waves: Chinese Themes in the Arts of Korea and Japan I," March 1–September 21, 2003.

Museum of Fine Arts, Gifu. "Enduring Legacy of Japanese Art: The Mary Griggs Burke Collection," July 5, 2005–August 19, 2005.

Hiroshima Prefectural Art Museum. "Enduring Legacy of Japanese Art: The Mary Griggs Burke Collection," October 4, 2005–December 11, 2005.

Tokyo Metropolitan Art Museum. "Enduring Legacy of Japanese Art: The Mary Griggs Burke Collection," January 24, 2006–March 5, 2006.

Miho Museum. "Enduring Legacy of Japanese Art: The Mary Griggs Burke Collection," March 15, 2006–June 11, 2006.

New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "Celebrating the Arts of Japan: The Mary Griggs Burke Collection," October 20, 2015–May 14, 2017.

New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "Kyoto: Capital of Artistic Imagination," July 24, 2019–January 31, 2021.

Tsuji Nobuo 辻惟雄, Mary Griggs Burke, Nihon Keizai Shinbunsha 日本経済新聞社, and Gifu-ken Bijutsukan 岐阜県美術館. Nyūyōku Bāku korekushon-ten: Nihon no bi sanzennen no kagayaki ニューヨーク・バーク・コレクション展 : 日本の美三千年の輝き(Enduring legacy of Japanese art: The Mary Griggs Burke collection). Exh. cat. [Tokyo]: Nihon Keizai Shinbunsha, 2005, pp. 35–43, cat. no. 40.

Murase, Miyeko, Il Kim, Shi-yee Liu, Gratia Williams Nakahashi, Stephanie Wada, Soyoung Lee, and David Sensabaugh. Art Through a Lifetime: The Mary Griggs Burke Collection. Vol. 1, Japanese Paintings, Printed Works, Calligraphy. [New York]: Mary and Jackson Burke Foundation, [2013], p. 85, cat. no. 105.