Herd Boy with Ox

Kano Masanobu 狩野正信

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

The bucolic scene of a herd-boy mounted on a water buffalo together making their way past rice paddies across a shallow river evokes a universally understood sense of harmony with nature while simultaneously sparking multiple associations in the context of early Japanese ink painting. While an affinity to didactic Zen Buddhist parables such as the Ten Ox‑Herding Songs is obvious, the image of an ox and ox‑herd was also emblematic of spring and agriculture, and enjoyed a long history in secular landscape painting in both China and Japan. This painting, in ink on a gilded fan, was probably based on a similar composition in a round fan-shaped painting by the thirteenth-century Chinese court painter Xia Gui, whose works were treasured in prominent Japanese collections of the fifteenth century.

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