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Ivy vines, bridges and floating fans 蔦の細道扇面流図屏風
Tawaraya Sotatsu 俵屋宗達 (fl. ca. 1600-1643)
early 17th century
- Medium
- Ink, color, gold, and silver on paper
- Classification
- Paintings
- Dimensions
- H x W (each): 170 x 381 cm (66 15/16 x 150 in)
- Culture
- Japanese
- Museum
- Smithsonian Institution, National Museum of Asian Art
- Credit line
- Gift of Charles Lang Freer
- Rights
- CC0 (Smithsonian Open Access), 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 Smithsonian Institution
About this work
The image of painted fans spilling off from a bridge into a stream evokes the memory of the legendary journey made by a fifteenth-century shogun traveling from the center of Kyoto to an outlying temple. While crossing a bridge, one of the shogun's servants accidentally dropped his master's fan into the rushing water below. Struck by the sudden poignant reminder of beauty's fragility and fleeting nature, all in the shogun's retinue followed suit, casting their fans into the stream.
