Door
Gallery mode Full size at the museum

Window mode follows your eyes with your camera, in this browser only: no picture or position leaves your device.

Pine trees, water and clouds

17th century

Medium
Ink, color, and gold on paper
Classification
Paintings
Dimensions
H x W: 174.3 x 75 cm (68 5/8 x 29 1/2 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

Japanese painters often depict the verdant landscapes of their native land in rich, opaque colors. The paintings on the paper surfaces of these sliding-door panels once adorned a room in an elite residence, providing an illusion of a view toward a scenic landscape of a pine grove growing along a shoreline. For large-scale paintings like these, gold leaf depicts clouds, mist, and hills. In their original architectural settings, the gold created subtle, transient reflections.