Spring Sunrise at Mount Penglai

Tanomura Chokunyū Japanese

On view at The Met Fifth Avenue in Gallery 231

This idealized spring scene, rendered in the blue-green palette of traditional Chinese landscape paintings, vividly imagines a sanctuary for the literati. A luxurious Chinese-style villa sits on the water’s edge at the foot of verdant mountains. Two scholarly figures engage in conversation within its main hall, while servants perform tasks on the grounds—one feeding a crane and another sweeping. The accompanying poem describes this setting as the legendary Mount Penglai, the island of the immortals in Chinese mythology.

Tanomura Chokunyū was a Kyoto-based literati painter and disciple of Tanomura Chikuden (1777–1835). He served as the founding president of the Kyoto Prefectural School of Painting (now Kyoto City University of Arts).

Spring Sunrise at Mount Penglai, Tanomura Chokunyū (Japanese, 1814–1907), Hanging scroll; ink and color on silk, Japan

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Spring Sunrise at Mount Penglai, Tanomura Chokunyū (Japanese, 1814–1907), Hanging scroll; ink and color on silk, Japan
Spring Sunrise at Mount Penglai, Tanomura Chokunyū (Japanese, 1814–1907), Hanging scroll; ink and color on silk, Japan

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