狩野探幽筆 神農・夏冬山水図|Winter Landscape
1662
Medium
One from a set of three hanging scrolls; ink and color on silk
Dimensions
44 1/2 x 15 1/2 in. (113 x 39.4 cm)
Classification
Paintings
Culture & Period
Japan · Edo period (1615–1868)
Department
Asian Art
Museum
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY
Credit
Charles Stewart Smith Collection, Gift of Mrs. Charles Stewart Smith, Charles Stewart Smith Jr., and Howard Caswell Smith, in memory of Charles Stewart Smith, 1914
Accession Number
14.76.26
Tags
About this artwork
Winter Landscape is a hanging scroll painting by Kano Tan'yū, created in 1662 during Japan's Edo period. As the most influential painter of the Kano school and official painter to the Tokugawa shogunate, Tan'yū established artistic standards that dominated Japanese painting for two centuries. The painting depicts a serene winter scene enveloped in the silence of falling snow. Barren trees and snow-covered mountains create a stark monochromatic landscape, with a solitary traveler and single penn...
Art Historical Context
Kano Tan'yū's *Winter Landscape* (166), one of a set of three hanging scrolls, captures the hushed beauty of a snow-swept Japanese winter during the Edo period (1615–1868). As the preeminent master of the Kano school and official painter to the Tokawa shogunate,'yū shaped Japanese art for over two centuries. This ink and color on silk work, signed at age 61 with his honored Hoin rank, originally flanked a portrait of the mythical Chinese emperor Shennong a summer counterpart— a classic triptych for elegant interiors. The composition evokes serene isolation: barren trees, snow-blanketed mounta...
About the Artist
Kano Tan'yū (Japanese) · 1602 –1674
Japanese, 1602–1674