Sansui Ga Paintings

Sansui-ga is a form of Japanese monochrome landscape paintings, the preferred genre among Zen painters in the 14th-16th century. Sansui-ga painting is done in Chinese-inspired sumi-e or suiboku-ga, an ink wash painting style, which uses black ink in various concentrations. Gradations of ink are used to create a sense of light and shade, as well as modulated brushstrokes and lines to create a sense of volume and rhythm. (Parent) Vast landscapes on screens and sliding doors set a serene and contemplative mood in Muromachi-period mansions and temples. (“Muromachi period”)
The above the images are the work of Japanese artist Kangaku Shinso Soami who was born in 1472 and died on Nov. 12, 1525. (“Soami”) The work is called Landscape of the Four Seasons,
28, 1476 and died Nov. 5, 1559 in Kyōto, Japan. The work is called The Four Accomplishments, it is a pair of six-fold screens, ink on paper, each screen is 68 1/4 x 146 in. (173.4 x 370.4 cm). Motonobu was the first of the Kanō painters. He also served the Ashikaga shoguns. (“Kano Motonobu”) These paintings allude to the gentlemanly pursuits of music, games of strategy, calligraphy, and painting, which were popular subjects for abbots' quarters and audience rooms of the ruling classes from the Muromachi period. (“Muromachi period”) At far right, a scholar is accompanied by a servant carrying his stringed instrument. They move toward a riverbank upon which three gentlemen are absorbed in a game of Go. In the left screen, two boys are carrying bundles of books and scrolls follow a hatted man headed toward a thatched pavilion. Inside, three servants have unrolled a painted hanging scroll for their master, who stands at the parapet gazing at a waterfall. Moving right to left through the screens, we find that we have also traveled temporally, from the barren plum branches of early spring, through a hazy summer, geese landing on a sandbank in autumn, and finally to the snow-covered rocks of
The Four Achievements work in contrast centers on depicting the seasons of a man’s life and how he learns the acknowledged gentlemanly pursuits of the period. It is only when one examines the details that you can see how very different the subject matter of the works really are. Soami’s work gives the viewer a sense of how small we really are in the world, by the contrast in size of the people depicted and the massive scale of the mountains. Motonobu’s work would have been more of a secular piece for the time period. The Japanese culture is very male and honor centric so The Four Achievements could have been an instructional piece for young