Gazing at a Waterfall

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–)

Gazing at a Waterfall

Tani Bunchō

1790

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

Museum

The Cleveland Museum of Art

Cleveland, United States

Credit Line

John L. Severance Fund