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Landscape with flowering vines
early 17th century
- Medium
- Ink, color, and gold on paper
- Classification
- Paintings
- Dimensions
- H x W: 155 x 358.6 cm (61 x 141 3/16 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 graceful curves of trailing vines—bottle gourd (yugao) and morning glory—dominate this landscape scene. The roof of a small thatched hut appears at the lower left. Gold leaf and particles are extensively applied to depict land banks and clouds; stylized waves painted with silver pigment have darkened with age. The extensive use of gold in large-format Japanese paintings such as folding screens and the sliding panels that form the movable “walls” of rooms in elite traditional residences was not merely decorative in intent. Gold reflected
