Hermit and Waterfall
高士観瀑図
by Komuro Suiun
- Date:
- Taishō–early Shōwa period (c. 1920s–1930s)
- Medium:
- Color woodblock print
高士観瀑図
by Komuro Suiun
Hermit and Waterfall (高士観瀑図) is a color woodblock print after a landscape composition by Komuro Suiun, deploying one of the most canonical topoi of the Sino-Japanese literati painting tradition: the recluse-scholar (kōshi, 'lofty gentleman') seated or standing at the edge of a clearing while contemplating a waterfall that descends from the high cliffs above. The subject derives from the Chinese hermit-and-waterfall paintings of the Song and Yuan dynasties — most influentially the kanbaku (waterfall-viewing) compositions of the Northern Song master Fan Kuan and the Yuan literati Ni Zan and Wu Zhen — and was carried into Japan by the Muromachi suiboku painters and into the nanga tradition by Ike no Taiga, Yosa Buson, and their followers in the late Edo period. Suiun's handling deploys the bone-line brushwork (kōkotsu) and disciplined wash that he had absorbed from his training with Tazaki Sōun and from his subsequent direct study of Chinese Yuan and Ming masters, and the composition is built around the contrast between the diagonal of the falling water and the small figure of the hermit at the lower right whose presence anchors the scale of the cliff. The print belongs to the body of small-format landscape and figure subjects that the Tokyo and regional publishers issued from Suiun's drawings in the Taishō and early Shōwa periods, and the subject ranked among the central images of the inter-war nanga revival that Suiun did so much to organize through the Nihon Nangain.
漁夫
Taishō–early Shōwa period (c. 1920s–1930s)
Color woodblock print
鎌倉建長寺
1948 (posthumous edition)
Color woodblock print
魚
Taishō–early Shōwa period (c. 1920s–1930s)
Color woodblock print (kachō-e)
鰈
Taishō–early Shōwa period (c. 1920s–1930s)
Color woodblock print (kachō-e)
Hermit and Waterfall (高士観瀑図) was created by Komuro Suiun (小室翠雲) in Taishō–early Shōwa period (c. 1920s–1930s).
Hermit and Waterfall depicts waterfalls and autumn foliage.
