# Four Motifs from the Eight Views of Xiao-Xiang

- By: Tani Bunchō (Japanese, 1763–1841)
- Date: 1788
- Medium: Four album leaves from a set of eight remounted as hanging scrolls; ink and color on paper
- Classification: Painting
- Dimensions: Each painting: 29.5 x 49 cm (11 5/8 x 19 5/16 in.); Each mounted: 129 x 67 cm (50 13/16 x 26 3/8 in.)
- Culture: Japan, Edo period (1615–1868)
- Credit line: Andrew R. and Martha Holden Jennings Fund
- Museum: [Cleveland Museum of Art](https://clevelandart.org/art/1980.188)
- Rights: [Public domain (CC0)](https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/)
- Picture: https://openaccess-cdn.clevelandart.org/1980.188/1980.188_web.jpg
- Who can see it: Little Ones profiles and older (museums give no ratings; placed by Invisible Network from the museum's own words)

These paintings were part of a set of album leaves representing the Eight Views of Xiao-Xiang, a theme originating in Chinese poetry and painting that spread to both Korea and Japan. Southern China’s Xiao-Xiang area, where the mist-covered banks of the Xiang River created a complex landscape shifting like the moods and minds of people, captured the imaginations of generations of painters and calligraphers. Inscriptions on these works suggest that they were possibly ordered by newly prominent Japanese Confucian scholars.