Bamboo and Rock in Snow
Not on view
Stems of bamboo, bending under the weight of snow fallen on their slender leaves, emerge from behind a moss-pocked boulder. Sakaki Hyakusen has left areas of the paper unpainted to represent snow, while an uneven gray wash signals a dark, wintry evening. An assiduous student of Chinese painting, Hyakusen is now considered a pioneer of nanga, or “southern school painting,” in Japan, and his influence on later nanga artists like Yosa Buson (1716–1784) is widely recognized.