Tenjin Traveling to China

Nagasawa Rosetsu 長澤蘆雪

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

This painting depicts the statesman-poet-scholar Sugawara Michizane (845–903) as Tenjin, the deified being he became following his unjust death in exile, and the calamities his angry spirit inflicted upon the imperial court in Kyoto. After his deification, Michizane was revered as a god of agriculture and patron of the falsely accused. One guise in which he is often represented is that of “Totō Tenjin,” or Tenjin on his way to China to visit a Zen Buddhist master. Rosetsu’s vision of Totō Tenjin reflects the artist’s early style, when he was strongly influenced by the deliberate, naturalistic mode of his master, Maruyama Ōkyo (1733–1795), founder of the Maruyama school.

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