Mt. Fuji through Pines
Kubo Shunman (Japanese, 1757–1820)
late 1700s-early 1800s
- Medium
- hanging scroll, ink and color on silk
- Classification
- Painting
- Dimensions
- Painting only: 90 x 30.8 cm (35 7/16 x 12 1/8 in.); Including mounting: 183.5 x 49.5 cm (72 1/4 x 19 1/2 in.)
- Culture
- Japan, Edo period (1615–1868)
- Museum
- Cleveland Museum of Art, Japanese Art
- Credit line
- Kelvin Smith Fund
- Rights
- Public domain (CC0), as the museum states it.
- Who can see it
- Little Ones profiles and older: it shows gentle subjects for the very young. How works are placed
View at the Cleveland Museum of Art
About this work
Kubo Shunman dashed off this loose image of Mt. Fuji viewed in the distance from behind pine trees as a performance painting, or sekiga. He did it on the spot in the company of members of his poetry club. Six of them, including the club's founder Yadoya no Meshimori (Rokujuen, 1753–1830), added kyoka poems, 31-syllable poems like the classical Japanese waka poem in form, but with a heavy emphasis on humor. Shunman jotted down a poem as well, in the bottom right corner of the painting, before signing and sealing it. Each poem takes the painted image as its point of departure.