Description
Painted in bold brushstrokes and ink wash, contrasting black and white, and occupied and voided space, this intimately sized painting depicts a scholar-hermit enjoying elegant boating under moonlight. The theme of a moonlight boat excursion below a cliff depicted in this work echoes the tradition of illustrating "Ode to the Red Cliff," a pair of poems by Su Shi, famous Northern Song Chinese poet (1037–1101).
Provenance
The Honorable Joseph P. Carroll and Roberta Carroll, MD, New York, NY (?–1989); (Joseph P. Carroll, Ltd., New York, NY, sold to the Cleveland Museum of Art) (1989); The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (1989–)
Accession Number
1989.87
Medium
album leaf; ink on silk
Dimensions
Image: 30 x 26.3 cm (11 13/16 x 10 3/8 in.); Overall: 34.9 x 30.6 cm (13 3/4 x 12 1/16 in.)
Classification
Painting
Credit Line
John L. Severance Fund
Tags
Painting Baroque (1600–1750) Ink Silk Painting
Background & Context
Background Story
Boating in Moonlight from the 1600s depicts boating in moonlight in the elegantly composed, atmospheric manner of the Japanese painting tradition. Boating in moonlight was one of the most important subjects in Japanese painting, representing the aesthetic of moon viewing (tsukimi) that was central to Japanese literary and artistic culture, and paintings depicting boating in moonlight represent one of the most elegantly composed traditions in Japanese painting. The 1600s date places this in the Edo period, when paintings of moonlit boating were producing some of their most elegantly composed works.
Cultural Impact
Boating in Moonlight is important in the history of Japanese painting because it demonstrates the elegantly composed, atmospheric manner of the Japanese painting tradition as applied to one of the most important subjects in Japanese aesthetic culture. Boating in moonlight—representing the aesthetic of moon viewing (tsukimi) that was central to Japanese culture—was one of the most important subjects in Japanese painting, and the 1600s painting shows this tradition at its most elegantly composed and atmospheric.
Why It Matters
Boating in Moonlight is an anonymous Edo period painting: boating in moonlight rendered in the elegantly composed, atmospheric manner of the Japanese painting tradition. The 1600s painting shows the aesthetic of moon viewing (tsukimi) that is one of the most important subjects in Japanese culture.
