Description
Artist Tani Bunchō painted this image in a mountain pavilion during winter. He inscribed it with two lines of a poem: “The stone cliff of layered rocks is extremely high. Waterfalls tumbling from the skies reverberate in the clouds.” The scholarly figure and attendant carrying his qin (a stringed instrument) are set amid majestically soaring mountains in China. For many people in Japan at the time, the image would call to mind a poem about a waterfall at Mount Lu by Chinese poet Li Bai (701–762).
Provenance
(Shogoro Yabumoto, Amagasaki, Hyōgo Prefecture, Japan, sold to the Cleveland Museum of Art) (?–1972); The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (1972–)
Accession Number
1972.16
Medium
hanging scroll; ink and color on silk
Dimensions
Painting: 112.5 x 51.1 cm (44 5/16 x 20 1/8 in.); Mounted: 214 x 54.5 cm (84 1/4 x 21 7/16 in.)
Classification
Painting
Credit Line
John L. Severance Fund