Landscape of the Four Seasons

Unkoku Tōgan

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

The four seasons of the year progress across the surface of this pair of screens, beginning at the right, with spring, and concluding with winter at the far left. The imaginary landscape, with rocky land masses, towering mountains, pavilions, and human activity, recalls aspects of the Chinese theme “Eight Views of the Xiao and Xiang Rivers,” particularly with its depiction of geese descending to a sandbar in the distance. Tōgan, founder of the Unkoku school, was one of the most important ink painters of the Momoyama period. This panoramic landscape composition reflects the influence of the earlier, Muromachi-period ink master, Sesshū Tōyō (1420–1506), whose studio, the Unkoku-an, was bestowed upon Tōgan in the 1590s and from which he adopted his family name. The sharp outlines and architectonic treatment of land masses visible in this work appear in other screens by Tōgan, some of which also feature gilded backgrounds.

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