Evening Landscape, c. 1540

The dramatic mountain which dominates this painting rises out of the mist, placing the foreground path and distant peaks in perspective. Specific motifs, such as the flock of geese at the right, the temple nestled in mountain peaks, and the moon at the left, are references to a famous Chinese poetic theme of the Eight Views at the Confluence of the Xiao and Xiang Rivers, the most common subject of medieval Japanese ink painting. This scroll has many characteristics of the early style of Sesson Shūkei (1504 – c. 1589), suggesting it was done by one of his followers around 1540. These include the peculiar arc of the waterfall; the hunched figures with featureless, pointed faces; and the long, jagged outlines of the mountains, their surfaces textured by short, nailhead strokes and diagonally applied ink washes.