1635
unspecified
From the collection of Cleveland Museum of Art
The Four Accomplishments is a 1635 unspecified by Iwasa Matabei, a Baroque work, held at Cleveland Museum of Art.
You see four people in a room: one plucks a koto, two play Go, one reads, and a boy paints flowers. They wear fancy robes and look relaxed. This painting shows what educated people in Japan enjoyed doing for fun. The theme comes from China, but the artist made it feel like daily life in the Edo period. The faces are calm, almost like a quiet party. To see more art like this, look up *japan, edo period (1615–1868)*.
This painting shows a woman playing a koto, a type of stringed instrument; a pair playing a board game called Go; a man deep in a book; and a boy painting an image of flowers. The group of fashionably dressed figures is set in and around a cozy residence, their poses conveying a sense of carefree pleasure. The scene is a playful response to a theme derived from Chinese culture that presents four notable pastimes of well-educated people.
The small, golden jar holds water to mix with the youth's ink for his painting.
Read the full account in the museum source.
Iwasa Matabei (岩佐 又兵衛); original name Araki Katsumochi 1578 – July 20, 1650) was a Japanese artist of the early Tokugawa period, who specialized in genre scenes of historical events and illustrations of classical…
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