Visiting a Friend on a Wooded Cliff

In this narrow hanging scroll, a scholar and his young attendant make their way up a steep pathway toward a retreat, where another scholar gazes into the distance. The painting is executed spontaneously, in quick, repeated brush strokes. Ike Taiga, who became a leading artist of the Nanga school, learned his distinctive style from woodblock-printed manuals on the techniques of Chinese painting. For the themes of his work, he also drew his inspiration from Chinese sources. Here, the inscription on the painting quotes a single line from a Chinese poem: “Mountain ranges of great age, trees one thousand meters high.”

Maker(s)
Artist: Ike Taiga 池大雅 (1723-1776)
Inscription: Box inscribed by Tomioka Tessai 富岡鉄斎 (1836-1924)
Historical period(s)
Edo period, ca. 1750-55
Medium
Ink and light color on paper
Dimensions
H x W: 197.8 x 45.8 cm (77 7/8 x 18 1/16 in)
Geography
Japan
Credit Line
Gift of Sanae Iida Reeves in memory of her father, Iida Yoshine
Collection
Freer Gallery of Art
Accession Number
F1994.27
On View Location
Currently not on view
Classification(s)
Painting
Type

Hanging scroll

Keywords
Edo period (1615 - 1868), Japan, kakemono, mountain, scholar, WWII-era provenance
Provenance

By 1960 to 1962
Yoshine Iida, acquired in Japan by 1960 [1]

From 1962 to 1992
Sanae Iida Reeves, Arligton, VA, by descent, in 1962 [2]

From 1992
Freer Gallery of Art, given by Mr. and Mrs. Douglas F. and Sanae Reeves, in 1992 [3]

Notes:

[1] Ownership of the object by the donor's father, Yoshine Iida, is recorded in the 1960 publication Ike Taiga sakuhin shu (see Curatorial Note 4, Ann Yonemura, June 30, 1992, in the object record).

[2] See note 1.

[3] Transferred from the Freer Study Collection to the Freer Permanent Collection on December 23, 1994 (see Curatorial Note 4, Elizabeth F. Duley, December 30, 1994, in the object record).

Previous Owner(s) and Custodian(s)

Mr. and Mrs. Douglas F. and Sanae Reeves
Iida Yoshine 1898-1960

Description

In this narrow hanging scroll, a scholar and his young attendant make their way up a steep pathway toward a retreat, where another scholar gazes into the distance. The painting is executed spontaneously, in quick, repeated brush strokes. Ike Taiga, who became a leading artist of the Nanga school, learned his distinctive style from woodblock-printed manuals on the techniques of Chinese painting. For the themes of his work, he also drew his inspiration from Chinese sources. Here, the inscription on the painting quotes a single line from a Chinese poem: "Mountain ranges of great age, trees one thousand meters high."

Inscription(s)

1. (Ann Yonemura, 30 June 1992) The inscription quotes one line of a Chinese poem from the Tang dynasty, which can be rendered: "Layered peaks of great antiquity; trees one thousand meters high."

Taiga's signature and three seals also appear on the painting.

The storage box for this painting is inscribed by painter Tomioka Tessai (1836-1924).

Label

In this steep landscape, a scholar and his young attendant make their way up a pathway toward a retreat where another scholar gazes into the distance. The painting is executed with quick brush strokes accented by dots and lines in black ink. The artist, Ike Taiga, who became a leading proponent of the Nanga school, which specialized in painting Chinese subjects, first learned his distinctive style by studying woodblock-printed manuals on Chinese painting techniques. Many of his landscapes, like this one, were expressions of an idealized way of life rather than portrayals of actual places. Here the inscription quotes a line from a Chinese poem with a slight variation through the substitution of one character: "Mountain ranges of great age; a thousand tiers of trees."

Published References
  • Kazuo Kurimoto. Ike Taiga sakuhin shu [Collection of Paintings by Ike Taiga]. Tokyo. cat. 124.
Collection Area(s)
Japanese Art
Web Resources
Google Cultural Institute
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