A Thousand Mountains in Deep Verdure
Returned to lender
This work of art was on loan to the museum and has since been returned to its lender.This unusual octagonal picture is filled with mountains, a stream, and several thatched huts visible between the trees. A small figure on a bridge, a regular feature of Gyokudō’s paintings, holds a long staff and stands gazing at the distant mountains. The painting is titled A Thousand Mountains in Deep Verdure, but one feels here a sense of neither humid warmth nor the dazzling, vibrant new greenery of early summer. Gyokudō saw himself more as a musician than as a painter. It is said that before painting he would have a few rounds of sake and then take up the brush when feeling intoxicated. This painting, too, has the sort of rhythmical brushwork that leads one to imagine an artist working in a mood lifted by alcohol.
Artwork Details
- Title: A Thousand Mountains in Deep Verdure
- Artist: Urakami (Uragami) Gyokudō (Japanese, 1745–1820)
- Period: Edo period (1615–1868)
- Date: ca. 1811–19
- Culture: Japan
- Medium: Hanging scroll; ink on paper
- Dimensions: Image: 13 3/4 × 14 5/8 in. (35 × 37.1 cm)
Overall with mounting: 54 5/16 × 21 3/8 in. (138 × 54.3 cm) - Classification: Paintings
- Credit Line: Lent by Feinberg Collection
- Curatorial Department: Asian Art