Wang Ziyou Visiting Dai Andao on a Snowy Evening (Ō Shiyū hō Tai Andō zu)

Kano Sansetsu

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

According to a story recorded in a fifth-century Chinese compilation of tales, the poet-calligrapher Wang Ziyou (321–379), traveled by boat to visit his friend Dai Andao on a snowy night. However, once he reached his destination, Wang turned around and went home without actually seeing his friend, having fulfilled his interest in taking the trip. In this pristine and spartan scene of snow and distant mountains, in which empty space adds as much atmosphere as the pictorial elements, the poet is a diminutive element in the face of the vastness of the winter landscape. A major Kano-school artist of the early Edo period, Sansetsu produced a number of paintings on Chinese themes in ink monochrome, but he could also work in a manner that combined aspects of ink painting with the decorative, colorful, gold-enriched mode developed by the Kano atelier in the Momoyama period (1573–1615). This starkly evocative landscape, with clearly defined, crystalline rocks often found in his compositions, belongs to the first of these two styles.

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