Provenance
(Katsuhiko Kobayashi, Japan, sold to Mr. and Mrs. Kelvin Smith); The Kelvin Smith Collection, Cleveland, OH, given by Mrs. Kelvin [Eleanor Armstrong] Smith [1899–1998] to the Cleveland Museum of Art (?–1985); The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (1985–)
Accession Number
1985.265
Medium
hanging scroll; ink and slight color on paper
Dimensions
Overall: 170.2 x 45.7 cm (67 x 18 in.); Painting only: 90.8 x 26.3 cm (35 3/4 x 10 3/8 in.)
Classification
Painting
Credit Line
The Kelvin Smith Collection, given by Mrs. Kelvin Smith
Tags
Painting Neoclassical & Romantic (1751–1850) Ink Paper Japanese
Background & Context
Background Story
Kimura Kenkado (1736-1802) was a Japanese painter known for the elegantly composed landscape paintings that make him one of the accomplished painters of the late Edo period. Landscape with Boaters from the late 1700s-early 1800s depicts a landscape with boaters in the elegantly composed manner that distinguishes Kenkado's best work from the more general landscape painting of his contemporaries. Kenkado was known for his elegantly composed landscapes of Japanese subjects, and the late 1700s-early 1800s date places this in the period when Edo period landscape painting was producing some of its most accomplished works.
Cultural Impact
Landscape with Boaters is important in the history of Japanese landscape painting because it demonstrates the elegantly composed manner that Kenkado brought to landscape subjects as one of the accomplished painters of the late Edo period. Kenkado's elegantly composed landscapes of Japanese subjects—combining the landscape tradition with the elegant composition that is his most distinctive contribution—represent one of the accomplished traditions in Edo period landscape painting, and the late 1700s-early 1800s painting shows this tradition at its most elegantly composed.
Why It Matters
Landscape with Boaters is Kenkado's elegantly composed Edo landscape: boaters in a landscape rendered in the composed manner of one of the accomplished painters of the late Edo period. The late 1700s-early 1800s painting shows the elegant composition that makes Edo period landscape painting one of the accomplished traditions in Japanese art.
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