Landscapes with the Chinese Literati Su Shi and Tao Qian

Nagasawa Rosetsu 長澤蘆雪

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

The forbidding precipice painted on the left screen suggests a site on the Yangzi River where the Chinese poet Su Shi, also known as Dongpo (1037–1101), composed his famous “Ode on the Red Cliff.” The gentler scene on the right screen, depicting a scholar and attendants in a hut in a willow grove, is meant to represent the Chinese poet-recluse Tao Qian, or Tao Yuanming (365–472), at his country retreat. The artist seems to have set up an explicit contrast between the two scenes—Su’s forced exile (wild) against Tao’s self-imposed exile (calm). Born to a samurai-class family near the capital, Nagasawa Rosetsu chose the life of a painter, studying in the Kyoto studio of Maruyama Ōkyo (1733–1795). Labeled one of the “Three Eccentrics” of the Edo period, he often exhibited a turbulent, bravura brush style and unconventional treatment of subject matter.

Asian Art

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

The Met's collection of Asian art—more than 35,000 objects, ranging in date from the third millennium B.C. to the twenty-first century—is one of the largest and most comprehensive in the world. Each of the many civilizations of Asia is represented by outstanding works, providing an unrivaled experience of the artistic traditions of nearly half the world.

Metropolitan Museum of Art