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Waves at Matsushima 松島図屏風
Tawaraya Sotatsu 俵屋宗達 (fl. ca. 1600-1643)
17th century
- Medium
- Ink, color, gold, and silver on paper
- Classification
- Paintings
- Dimensions
- H x W (overall [each]): 166 x 369.9 cm (65 3/8 x 145 5/8 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 brilliant paintings on this pair of folding screens are regarded as masterpieces among only six surviving sets of screens by Sotatsu, a talented and innovative artist who headed a painting workshop known as Tawaraya. As a townsman, Sotatsu produced paintings such as fans for popular consumption. By the late 1620s, however, Sotatsu was painting for the imperial court, and his works survive in the collections of the Kyoto imperial palace. For his artistic merit, he was granted the honorary Buddhist ecclesiastical title Hokkyo (Bridge of the Law), which is included in his signature on these screens.
