Landscape
Fukuda Kodōjin 福田古道人 Japanese
Not on view
In this highly original and provocative landscape in ink,a literati gentleman sits alone at the lower left, admiring the vastness of the natural world. Fukuda Kodōjin was a versatile artist whose talents extended beyond painting and calligraphy to poetry. He composed both Japanese and Chinese verse, including the poem inscribed at the upper right of the present work:
I am old now. Nothing pleases me;
nothing worries me, either.
Even though I am not dead yet,
I already rest from the world.
Gathering healing herbs and drinking water,
I yearn for Daoist cultivation.
Looking down and above, and reciting,
I wish to leave but I stay.
Rivers flowing and mountains towering,
The sun and moon hang above my head.
In the vast universe,
I travel alone at ease with nature.
—transl. Masako Watanabe
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