Two Deer by Snowy Pines
雪松双鹿図
by Mori Kansai
- Date:
- late 19th century
- Medium:
- Hanging scroll; ink and color on silk
雪松双鹿図
by Mori Kansai
Two Deer by Snowy Pines is a hanging-scroll painting by Mori Kansai in ink and color on silk now in the Minneapolis Institute of Art (accession 2007.106.8). The composition pairs two sika deer (Nihon-jika) — a stag and doe in classic Mori-Kishi-school natural-history grouping — against a stand of snow-laden pines, with the tall vertical format heightening the cold austerity of the scene. The subject sits squarely in the Mori-Kishi tradition of close animal observation that the school inherited from Mori Sosen and Kishi Ganku and refined into a Kyoto specialty through the early nineteenth century. Deer carried strong literary associations for Kansai's Meiji audience: the deer of the autumn fields figured in countless waka and tanka, the sacred deer of the Kasuga Shrine had iconographic weight in Buddhist and Shintō painting, and snowy-pine deer compositions were a standard auspicious subject combining the symbols of longevity (pine), perseverance (snow), and Buddhist gentleness (deer). Signed Kansai, the painting is one of three Mori Kansai animal scrolls held by the Minneapolis Institute and represents the height of his mid-Meiji animal painting.
朝妻舟図摺物
mid-19th century
Woodblock print diptych (surimono); ink and color on paper with metallic pigments
梅花小禽図
1873
Album leaf; ink and color on silk
能効藥種
circa 1847–1852
Woodblock-printed book illustration; ink and color on paper
波貝図
1873
Album leaf; ink and color on silk
Two Deer by Snowy Pines (雪松双鹿図) was created by Mori Kansai (森寛斎) in late 19th century.
Two Deer by Snowy Pines depicts winter.
