Jurōjin

Gan Ku (Kishi Ganku)

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Jurōjin, one of the Seven Gods of Good Fortune, depicted wearing a tall cap and leaning on a bamboo staff, is accompanied by a deer, who holds a magical fungus in its mouth. A rolled up scroll tied to the end of the deity’s bamboo staff seems to be tangled in the branches above. Kishi Ganku, who studied paintings of the Maruyama-Shijō school and others when he was in his twenties, later established his own artistic lineage, whose members endeavored to meld Japanese painting styles with elements of Western realism. While his handling of the trees and rocks follows a standard Japanese approach to landscape, his treatment of Jurōjin’s facial features exhibits a characteristic interest in naturalism.

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