Eight Views of the Xiao and Xiang Rivers

Description

Watanabe Shiko, an Edo period painter who combined Kano school style with Rimpa style, re-created the Xiao and the Xiang rivers on a pair of eight-panel screens. For this composition, he followed the Kano school’s sense of space, adapted from miniature copying paintings (shukuzu) by the Japanese artist Kano Tanyu. Watanabe revised the typical representations of the Xiao and the Xiang rivers by rendering the theme Wild Geese Descending to Sandbar on the right screen and Evening Bell from Mist-Shrouded Temple on the left screen. He depicted simple motifs—moon, boat, geese, and temple—to suggest the other scenes while also creating airy space.

Provenance

R. Fukui, Tokyo, Japan; Mayuyama and Co., Tokyo, Japan; N. V. Hammer, New York, NY, given to the Cleveland Museum of Art (?-1968); The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (1968-)

Eight Views of the Xiao and Xiang Rivers

Watanabe Shikō

1700s

Accession Number

1968.267

Medium

Six-panel folding screen, ink on paper

Dimensions

Image: 150 x 356 cm (59 1/16 x 140 3/16 in.); Overall: 170 x 376 cm (66 15/16 x 148 1/16 in.)

Classification

Painting

Museum

The Cleveland Museum of Art

Cleveland, United States

Credit Line

Gift of N. V. Hammer