Landscape

ca. 1500

Rough brushstrokes render mountains shrouded in mist, while calligraphic strokes add houses in the foothills and a lone boat in the foreground. The inscription by a Zen monk named Ko’o (meaning “old man by the lake”) comments that “nature and painting should reveal each other.” This thought resonates with “poetry in painting and painting in poetry,” as observed in the landscape paintings of the Chinese painter and poet Wang Wei (ca. 699–759), who is also mentioned in the inscription here.

Ink on paper

30 3/8 x 10 5/8 in. (77.2 x 27 cm)

Overall h.: 63 1/2 in.

Overall w.: 16 1/4 in.

Eugene Fuller Memorial Collection

50.120

Not currently on view

Resources

Exhibition HistoryPortland, Oregon, Portland Art Museum, Gift to a City: Masterworks from the Eugene Fuller Memorial Collection in the Seattle Art Museum, Nov. 3 - 28, 1965. Cat. no. 119.

Paris, Musée Cernuschi, La découverte de L’Asie, hommage a René Grousset, 1954. Cat. no. 550.

San Francisco Museum of Art, Art in Asia & the West, 1957.

San Francisco, M. H. de Young Mem. Museum, Treasures of Japan, 1960.

Seattle, Washington, Seattle Art Museum, Japanese Art in the Seattle Art Museum, 1960.

Richmond, Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, Treasures in America, 1961.

Eugene, Oregon, Museum of Art, University of Oregon, Treasure Finds in Pacific Coast Museums, 1962.

Seattle, Washington, Seattle Art Museum Pavilion, A Thousand Cranes, Feb. 5 - July 12, 1987.

Seattle, Washington, Seattle Asian Art Museum, Legends, Tales, Poetry: Visual Narrative in Japanese Art, Dec. 22, 2012 - July 21, 2013.

Seattle, Washington, Seattle Asian Art Museum, Boundless: Stories of Asian Art, Feb. 8, 2020 - ongoing [on view July 16 - Dec. 5, 2021].

Published References"Handbook, Seattle Art Museum: Selected Works from the Permanent Collections." Seattle, WA: Seattle Art Museum, 1951, p. 95 (b&w)

Lee, Sherman E. "Japanese Monochrome Painting at Seattle," in Artibus Asiae, vol. 14, nos. 1, 2, 1951, pp. 58-59, fig. 5

Paris, Musée Cernuschi, cat. “La découverte de L’Asie,” hommage a René Grousset, 1954, p. 143-144, 146 #550, p. 157 (XXX), pl. XXX

San Francisco Museum of Art, "Art in Asia & the West," 1957, illus. p. 26

Fuller, Richard E. "Japanese Art in the Seattle Art Museum: An Historical Sketch." Seattle, WA: Seattle Art Museum, 1960 ("Presented in commemoration of the Hundredth Anniversary of Diplomatic Relations between Japan and the United States of America"), no. 95a and b

Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, "Treasures in Am.," cat., 1961, p. 47

Eugene, OR, Museum of Art, University of Oregon, "Treasure Finds in Pacific Coast Museums," cat. 1962, ill. p. 15, 16 (unnumbered)

Portland, OR, Portland Art Museum, "Gift to a City," cat. 1965, no. 119, ill.

Shimada, Shujiro, "Japanese Art in the West," 1969

Christensen, E. O., "A Guide to Art Museums in the U.S.," 1968, #461

Hagen, Margaret A. "Varieties of Realism: Geometries of Representational Art," Cambridge University Press, 1986, p. 151, fig. 6.22 (right)

Seattle Art Museum respectfully acknowledges that we are on Indigenous land, the traditional territories of the Coast Salish people. We honor our ongoing connection to these communities past, present, and future.

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