Minneapolis Institute of Art

Li Tieguai (left), Han Xiangzi (right) [center right of the set Daoist Immortals]

Kano SansetsuLinkedCulture matchlcp-ec26f274bb84

Date: 1646
Medium: Sliding door (fusuma), ink, color, and gold leaf on paper
Department: Asian Art
Institution: Minneapolis Institute of Art
Object ID: 18575

From the Minneapolis Institute of Art record

These sliding door panels ( fusuma ) show a group of Chinese Daoist immortals. The Chinese believed the immortals were historical and legendary personages who, through moral virtue, faith, and discipline, managed to transcend the bounds of the natural world and live forever. They were worshiped as saints. Old Chinese themes like this were admired in Japan by military rulers and Zen priests, who exalted Chinese culture and its heroes. This set of panels formed part of a much larger suite of paintings made for a temple in Kyoto. In the 1640s, Kano Sansetsu and his studio created hundreds of panel paintings for this temple. A devastating fire in the 1800s destroyed all but eight—the four panels you see here and four paintings that decorated their reverse, now in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. Asia

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