1513
unspecified
From the collection of Cleveland Museum of Art
Returning Sails off a Distant Shore, from Eight Views of Xiao-Xiang is a 1513 unspecified by Sesshū Tōyō, a Renaissance work, held at Cleveland Museum of Art.
You see a few small boats gliding toward a misty shore, their sails barely catching the light. This painting is one of eight scenes meant to show a famous Chinese landscape. The artist copied a style from an older Chinese painter, but added softer, looser brushstrokes. Some scholars think Sesshū Tōyō made it, but no one is sure. To see how Japanese artists borrowed from China, look up the technique called *sfumato*.
This painting and CMA 2015.590 belong to a group that was likely mounted as a pair of four-panel folding screens focusing on the Eight Views of Xiao-Xiang, a theme centered on an area in southern China. This one represents the motif “Returning Sails Off a Distant Shore.” Both emulate the style of Chinese painter Li Tang (about 1050–after 1130). Some scholars believe the paintings are the work of Sesshū Tōyō (1420–1506), the only Japanese painter of his day to have traveled to China.
Other paintings from the same set are in the collections of the Rhode Island School of Design and the Philadelphia Museum of Art.
Read the full account in the museum source.
Sesshū Tōyō (雪舟 等楊; c. 1420 – August 26, 1506), also known simply as Sesshū (雪舟; Japanese pronunciation: ), was a Japanese Zen monk and painter who is considered a great master of Japanese ink painting. Initially…
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