Early Spring Landscape

Shūtoku

before 1533

Hanging scroll, ink and light color on paper

Minneapolis Institute of Art

A traditional Chinese ink wash painting depicts a dramatic mountain landscape with a waterfall, pine trees, and a small pavilion by the water. Calligraphy is present in the upper left. Below towering cliffs, a surging waterfall, and wizened pine trees sits a lonely riverside pavilion, its curtains drawn back. The occupant is nowhere to be found, but his boat is moored nearby. There is a bridge across the way, but the path it seems to connect to disappears in heavy mist. The painter of this landscape, whose seal reading “Shūtoku” is impressed at lower left, was long confused with another painter of the same name who was a follower of the master painter Sesshū active in far western Japan. The Shūtoku of this painting, however, has recently been identified as a wholly separate painter active in the eastern provinces.