Autumnal Landscape with a Waterfall

Ike (Tokuyama) Gyokuran

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Ike Gyokuran was one of the best-known women artists of the Edo period. She grew up in Kyoto, where her family owned a tea shop and her mother and adoptive grandmother published waka poetry. Later, Gyokuran and her husband, the influential and prolific Nanga (literati) painter Ike Taiga (1723–1776), built their home and studio by Gion Shrine, east of Kyoto’s Kamo River. In this painting of an autumn landscape with crystalline foreground rocks before a background waterfall, the artist combines soft brush lines and angular, darkly inked, calligraphic strokes. Abundant short blue-green marks and pink dots indicate evergreen trees alongside the maples and other deciduous trees changing color in the mountains.

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