The Four Accomplishments

The Four Accomplishments

Kano Motonobu 狩野元信

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Within a landscape of towering pines, distant peaks, and roaring waterfalls are four scenes of human activity, each alluding to one of the four pursuits deemed appropriate for Chinese gentlemen: music, the board game Go, calligraphy, and painting. Motonobu, second-generation head of the Kano School of painting, laid the groundwork for the school’s centuries of dominance over mainstream Japanese painting. One of his many achievements was the adaptation of small-scale paintings (like fans and albums) associated with specific Chinese masters to large-scale painting formats such as folding screens and panels. Here, Motonobu employs brush techniques associated with the Southern Song Chinese court painter Xia Gui (active ca. 1195–1225). ).

Asian Art

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

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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.