Currently not on view
Landscape,
16th century
Information
16th century
Asia, Japan
Hōsetsu Tōzen was a Zen painter active in the middle to late 16th century. He was born in Matsuura-Gun in Hizen prefecture, on the southern island of Kyushu, he then moved to Yamaguchi prefecture (in southern Honshu, the main Japanese island) to study painting. Hōsetsu is best known for being a disciple of Sesshū Tōyō 雪舟 等楊(1420–1506), one of the most important Zen painters in the Muromachi period. Sesshū worked in a great variety of styles, but his paintings often employed sharp outlines and dark ink washes, techniques generally considered to be derived from the study of Chinese artists from the Yuan dynasty (1279–1368). For dramatic effect, he also exploited sharp tonal contrast. Sesshū focused almost entirely on the foreground elements, tending to monumentalize them, and displayed little concern for indicating recession into the distance or the background forms. This painting very clearly demonstrates the stylistic links between Sesshū and his student Hōsetsu.
The foreground of the painting is dominated by large rock formation that juts upward and into the middle of the scene from the lower left corner. The rock’s jagged, irregular form is articulated by thickly applied, angular outline strokes. The strokes are in the form known as large axe-cut brushstrokes. Such triangular brushstrokes are associated with Ma Yuan and Xia Gui, famous Chinese painters from the Southern Song period (1127–1279). Approaching the large rock form from the right of the painting is a gentleman with a stick and his servant boy lagging behind and carrying parcels across his shoulders. The two figures appear on a path that winds behind the rock and will eventually take them to the buildings seen in the distance. The far distance is obscured by a list mist, only a few trees – faintly done in pale blue pigment – and a tall peak in the left background are seen. This composition adapts a section of Sesshū’s handscroll (Kyoto National Museum).
