Fish and Lotus
Medium
Hanging scroll; ink and color on silk
Dimensions
Image: 47 1/16 × 18 13/16 in. (119.6 × 47.8 cm) Overall with mounting: 80 11/16 × 24 1/4 in. (205 × 61.6 cm) Overall with knobs: 80 11/16 × 26 11/16 in. (205 × 67.8 cm)
Classification
Paintings
Culture & Period
Japan · Edo period (1615–1868)
Department
Asian Art
Museum
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY
Credit
The Howard Mansfield Collection, Purchase, Rogers Fund, 1936
Accession Number
36.100.94
Tags
Art Historical Context
Created during Japan’s Edo period (1615–1868), “Fish and Lotus” is a hanging scroll by Kano Yasunobu, a painter from the long-dominant Kano school. Painted in ink and color on silk, the work measures roughly 47 by 19 inches in its image area and was meant to be viewed vertically, a format that encourages quiet contemplation as the eye travels from top to bottom. The scroll’s silk surface allowed for both precise brush lines and soft washes of color, techniques prized in official and scholarly circles of the time. Kano Yasunobu belonged to a family workshop that supplied paintings to the Tokug...
About the Artist
Kano Yasunobu (Japanese) · 1614 –1685
Japanese, 1614–1685