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Seven Sages of the Bamboo Grove

1550s
Not on view
During the turbulent years of China’s early Western Jin dynasty (265–317), seven literati secluded themselves in a bamboo grove outside the capital. There they escaped from the strictures of officialdom and Confucian conduct. They drank wine, engaged in witty Daoist discourse called qingtan, and played music and chess. Their story became legend and a frequent subject of painting in China, then Japan. In this unusually exuberant interpretation by Sesson, the sages dance wildly in the company of equally ebullient women and children. Even the bamboo seems to sway to the drumbeat. Although this type of departure from traditional iconography led to the occasional characterization of Sesson as “eccentric,” he was also a Zen monk and educated painter who studied a wide array of earlier Chinese and Japanese paintings. This work can be dated to the 1550s, when he lived near Kamakura, the old administrative capital and the early medieval cradle of Zen Buddhism in Japan.

Artwork Details

Object Information
  • 雪村周継筆　竹林七聖図
  • Title: Seven Sages of the Bamboo Grove
  • Artist: Sesson Shūkei (ca. 1504–ca. 1589)
  • Period: Muromachi period (1392–1573)
  • Date: 1550s
  • Culture: Japan
  • Medium: Hanging scroll; ink and color on paper
  • Dimensions: Image: 40 5/16 × 20 3/8 in. (102.4 × 51.7 cm)
    Overall with mounting: 79 3/4 × 26 7/16 in. (202.5 × 67.2 cm)
    Overall with knobs: 79 3/4 × 28 9/16 in. (202.5 × 72.6 cm)
  • Classification: Paintings
  • Credit Line: Mary Griggs Burke Collection, Gift of the Mary and Jackson Burke Foundation, 2015
  • Object Number: 2015.300.50
  • Curatorial Department: Asian Art

More Artwork

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Crow on a Rock, Sesson Shūkei Japanese, Hanging scroll; ink on paper, Japan
Crow on a Rock
Sesson Shūkei
probably 19th century
Mynah Birds Attacking an Owl, Sesson Shūkei Japanese, Matted painting; ink on paper, Japan
Mynah Birds Attacking an Owl
Sesson Shūkei
probably 19th century
Landscape with Rocky Precipice, Sesson Shūkei Japanese, Hanging scroll; ink and color on paper, Japan
Landscape with Rocky Precipice
Sesson Shūkei
16th century
Landscape, Sesson Shūkei Japanese, Six-panel folding screen; ink on paper, Japan
Landscape
Sesson Shūkei
16th century
Monkeys on Rocks and Trees, Sesson Shūkei Japanese, Two-panel folding screen; ink on paper, Japan
Monkeys on Rocks and Trees
Sesson Shūkei
17th century

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