Two Cranes

A pair of cranes is humorously depicted in quiet repose, resting contentedly on three sticklike legs. Like the roosters often depicted in late ink paintings attributed to Jakuchū, these birds are highly stylized and abstracted in form, showing none of the obsession with minute detail that characterized his earlier, polychrome works, such as White Plum Blossoms and Moon (2015.300.213). This work differs, however, from many of his late ink-monochrome paintings on paper in that it is done simply, without the overwrought hyperbole that points to execution by pupils rather than by the master himself. It is therefore likely that Two Cranes is the product of Jakuchū 's own brush.