1704
unspecified
From the collection of Cleveland Museum of Art
West Lake is a 1704 unspecified by Ike no Taiga, a Baroque work, held at Cleveland Museum of Art.
You see a soft, misty lake dotted with tiny islands and a curved stone bridge. This painting shows West Lake in China, but it was made by a Japanese artist. The lake was famous in Chinese poetry, and Japanese painters borrowed the idea. The arched bridge is the giveaway—it’s the same one poets wrote about centuries before. Look up *Japan, Edo period (1615–1868)* to see more art from this time.
West Lake near Hangzhou, China, has been home to revered poets who immortalized it in their poetry. Tang dynasty poet Bai Juyi (772–846) lived in its vicinity, and Song dynasty poet Lin Bu (967–1028) led a reclusive life on Solitary Hill near the lake. Landscape paintings of West Lake gained in popularity in Japan as early as the 1400s. The distinctive, arched bridges connecting small islands in the lake identify the subject. Ike Taiga was among the first generation of Japanese artists to emulate Chinese scholars who painted as amateurs and gifted their work to friends and colleagues.
Among Taiga's sources for his paintings were images he studied in Chinese wood-block–printed books.
Read the full account in the museum source.
Ike no Taiga (池大雅; June 6, 1723, in Kyōto, Japan — May 30, 1776, in Kyōto) was a Japanese painter and calligrapher born in Kyoto during the Edo period.
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