Waves at Matsushima 松島図屏風

Object Details

• Artist

  Tawaraya Sotatsu 俵屋宗達 (fl. ca. 1600-1643)

• Label

  The brilliant paintings on this pair of folding screens are regarded as masterpieces among only six surviving sets of screens by Sotatsu, a talented and innovative artist who headed a painting workshop known as Tawaraya. As a townsman, Sotatsu produced paintings such as fans for popular consumption. By the late 1620s, however, Sotatsu was painting for the imperial court, and his works survive in the collections of the Kyoto imperial palace. For his artistic merit, he was granted the honorary Buddhist ecclesiastical title Hokkyo (Bridge of the Law), which is included in his signature on these screens.

  Matsushima (Pine Islands) is the name of a famous site (meisho) near Sendai, a city in Miyagi Prefecture in northeastern Japan. Its beauty inspired both poets and painters. In Sotatsu's screens the rock from which pine trees grow are rendered in brilliant mineral colors of green, blue, and brown, highlighted with gold. Waves in animated forms are delineated in alternating lines of ink and gold, producing a luminous effect. Clouds and embankments are rendered in particles of gold leaf accented with silver, which has darkened over time to a soft black tone.

  Sotatsu's innovative composition creates a dynamic interplay among the land and cloud forms, the bending pines, and churning waves. His lifelong interest in pictorial composition left a lasting legacy. Later painters of the Rimpa school, such as Ogata Korin (1658-1716), repeated the Matsushima theme in their work. The Matsushima screens were probably painted in the early Kan'ei era (1624-44), a period of cultural efflorescence in Kyoto.

• Provenance

  To 1906

  Bunshichi Kobayashi (circa 1861-1923), Boston, San Francisco, Tokyo, and Yokohama, to 1906 [1]

  From 1906 to 1919

  Charles Lang Freer (1854-1919), purchased from Bunshichi Kobayashi in 1906 [2]

  From 1920

  Freer Gallery of Art, gift of Charles Lang Freer in 1920 [3]

  Notes:

  [1] See Original Screen List, S.I. 123-124, L. 115, pg. 34, Freer Gallery of Art and Arthur M. Sackler Gallery Archives.

  [2] See note 1.

  [3] The original deed of Charles Lang Freer's gift was signed in 1906. The collection was received in 1920 upon the completion of the Freer Gallery.

• Collection

  Freer Gallery of Art Collection

• Exhibition History

  Rinpa Screens (February 25, 2023 to February 24, 2024)

  Sotatsu: Making Waves (Saturday, October 24, 2015 to Sunday, January 31, 2016)

  Waves at Matsushima (May 28 to July 25, 2011)

  Japanese Screens (March 2007 to January 3, 2016)

  Freer: A Taste for Japanese Art (July 1, 2006 to January 1, 2007)

  Japanese Art in the Age of Koetsu (June 6, 1998 to February 15, 1999)

  Japanese Screens (August 13, 1997 to May 4, 1998)

  Japanese Screens (May 9, 1993 to November 13, 1995)

  Japanese Screens (February 11, 1983 to July 19, 1988)

  Rimpa Screens (October 9, 1980 to December 21, 1981)

  Japanese Lacquer (April 16, 1979 to October 8, 1980)

  Japanese Art (July 1, 1974 to April 10, 1978)

  Japanese Art—Painted Screens (August 18, 1967 to May 2, 1973)

  Japanese Art, Galleries 3, 4, and 5 (January 1, 1963 to September 16, 1970)

  Japanese Screen Paintings (March 10, 1961 to January 1, 1963)

  Untitled Exhibition, Japanese Screens, 1957 (March 20, 1957 to March 30, 1960)

  Centennial Exhibition, Gallery 5 (February 25, 1956 to March 15, 1957)

  Untitled Exhibition, Japanese Screens (October 3, 1947 to November 10, 1955)

  Untitled Exhibition, Japanese Screens and Scrolls, 1946 (April 30, 1946 to October 3, 1947)

  Untitled Exhibition, Japanese Screens and Scrolls (April 5, 1933 to December 8, 1941)

  Japanese Screens, 1923 (May 2, 1923 to April 5, 1933)

  A Selection of Art Objects from the Freer Collection Exhibited in the New Building of the National Museum (April 15 to June 15, 1912)

• Previous custodian or owner

  Kobayashi Bunshichi 小林文七 (ca. 1861-1923) (C.L. Freer source)

  Charles Lang Freer (1854-1919)

• Origin

  Japan

• Credit Line

  Gift of Charles Lang Freer

• Type

  Painting

• Restrictions and Rights

  CC0 - Creative Commons (CC0 1.0)

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  collections.si.edu

• Date

  1700s, 1710s, 1720s, 1770s, 1780s, 1790s, 1730s, 1740s, 1750s, 1760s, 1800s, 1810s, 1820s, 1830s, 1610s, 1600s, 1650s, 1640s, 1630s, 1620s, 1690s, 1840s, 1680s, 1850s, 1670s, 1860s, 1660s

• Name

  Kobayashi, Bunshichi, Freer, Charles Lang

• Place

  Japan

• Topic

  Water, Wave, Charles Lang Freer collection, Art, Edo period, Japan, (1600 - 1868), Japanese Art, Ocean

• Culture

  Japanese

• Object Type

  Paintings