# Poems and Pictures of the Eight Views of Xiao-Xiang

- By: Unkoku Tōgan (Japanese, 1547–1618)
- By: Inkei Gentetsu (Japanese, 1562–1612)
- Date: 1605–12
- Medium: Handscroll; ink on paper
- Classification: Painting
- Dimensions: 40.3 x 657.8 cm (15 7/8 x 259 in.)
- Culture: Japan, Momoyama period (1573–1615)
- Credit line: Leonard C. Hanna Jr. Fund
- Museum: [Cleveland Museum of Art](https://clevelandart.org/art/2020.258)
- Rights: [Public domain (CC0)](https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/)
- Picture: https://invisiblenetwork.ai/thumbs/cma/2020.258/2020.258_web.jpg
- Who can see it: Tweens profiles and older (museums give no ratings; placed by Invisible Network from the museum's own words)

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