Cleveland Museum of Art

Poems and Pictures of the Eight Views of Xiao-Xiang

Unkoku Tōgan

Date

1605–12

Medium

Handscroll; ink on paper

Culture

Japan, Momoyama period (1573–1615)

Department

Japanese Art

Institution

Cleveland Museum of Art

Unkoku Tōgan brushed these scenes using the splashed-ink technique associated in Japan with the Chinese monk Yujian Ruofen (active late 1200s). Xiao-Xiang refers to the region in present-day Hunan province, where the Xiang River and its tributaries converge. Each of the eight views evokes a time of day or season. The earliest surviving series of Xiao-Xiang paintings is by Wang Hong (active mid-1100s), but textual evidence tells us the theme appears earlier. It was later adopted in Japan and Korea, as seen here. The poems were inscribed by Inkei Gentetsu, the third abbot of the Rinzai Zen temple Tōshunji, Japan The “Tō” of Tōgan comes from the name of painter Sesshū Tōyō (1420–1506).

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