Mountain Landscape
ca. 1761–63
Medium
Hanging scroll; ink and color on silk
Dimensions
Image: 18 x 25 in. (45.7 x 63.5 cm) Overall with mounting: 54 1/2 x 29 5/8 in. (138.4 x 75.2 cm) Overall with knobs: 54 1/2 x 32 in. (138.4 x 81.3 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
36.100.66
Tags
About this artwork
Soga Shōhaku created this distinctive mountain landscape around 1761-63, demonstrating the bold, eccentric style that set him apart from conventional eighteenth-century Japanese painting schools. Shōhaku, one of Edo period's most individualistic painters, rejected the polish of academic traditions in favor of exaggerated forms, dramatic contrasts, and intense expression. This hanging scroll, executed in ink and color on silk, depicts a Chinese-style landscape with steep mountains, architectural ...
Art Historical Context
Soga Shōhaku's *Mountain Landscape*, created around 1761–63 during Japan's Edo period (16151868), is a hanging scroll in ink and color on silk This traditional Japanese format, designed for selective display in homes or temples, captures a dramatic Chinese-inspired vista of steep mountains, rocky outcrops, and subtle architectural hints. Shōhaku, an eccentric Kyoto-based painter active in the mid-18th century, the refined polish of contemporary schools like Kano or Nanga, embracing instead a bold, individualistic style that contemporaries either hailed as brilliant or dismissed as crude. What...
About the Artist
Soga Shōhaku · 1730–1781
Japanese, 1730–1781