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'Foggy Mountain', by Unknown, Japanese Antique Scroll

About the Item

This 77" x 22" Japanese Antique Scroll depicts a serene and foggy landscape painting on silk with a figure positioned in the lower half of the composition. The figure stands on what appears to be a raft or a bridge upon a body of water and holds an elongated tool, perhaps a spear for fishing. A tree emerges from the lower left hand corner of the work and slightly covers the visibility of the long raft that the figure stands upon. The tree, just like the rest of the work, is represented in a painterly style, with light, simple and undefined strokes. The branches are brown, thin strokes and the leaves are small, fanned out strokes that are not connected to the branches or each other and are white and orange/brown. A very faint mountain is depicted emerging from the left hand side of the scroll. The base of the mountain starts from about the halfway mark of the composition, slightly above the figure on the raft, with the point reaching just below the top of the scroll. The base of the mountain has discernible trees as well as on the whole mountain, and their representations begin to get smaller and smaller and eventually disappear toward the mountaintop. The mountain and trees are slightly hidden by the dense fog depicted in the scene, making the subject matter less visible, especially towards the top of the composition and around the mountain. There are some thicker/larger brush strokes portrayed on the mountain, creating areas that seem to be very dense parts of the landscape. There are also visible structures that reside on the mountain, specifically two, that fall about halfway from the base of the mountain to the top. The structures resemble traditional Japanese architecture and are painted gold, making them stand out from the earth tones used to paint the mountain and trees surrounding the structures. Predominant colors are grey, greens, white and flecks of aqua throughout. The watercolor scene is bordered by pale green silk fabric with a pattern of organic lines throughout the border, framing the piece along with adding texture. The traditional styles of Japanese scrolls are paper upon silk. This hanging scroll's mounting style is specifically known as the "Sansebiao" style. The painting made on paper, is known as "huaxin" (畫心; "painted heart"), and within the silk border of the work, the upper part is called tiantou (天頭; "Heaven") while the lower part is called ditou (地頭; "Earth"). Above the tiantou, at the very top of the scroll is a thin wooden bar, called tiangan (天杆) and there is a plastic ivory cylindrical bar at the bottom of this scroll, called a digan (地杆), which is attached to give the scroll weight at the bottom as that it hangs properly onto a wall, but it also acts as a base to roll up a scroll for storage when the artwork is not in display. According to Anna Willmann, from the Department of Asian Art, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, "It is believed that the handscroll was invented in India sometime before the fourth century B.C., where it was primarily used for religious texts, and came to China by the first century A.D. The introduction of the handscroll to Japan came several centuries later, as part of the spread of Buddhism from the mainland around the sixth century, along with many other cultural innovations, including the Chinese writing system. The earliest extant illustrated handscroll in Japan is a work showing episodes from the life of the Buddha, and was created in the eighth century."
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