Landscape

Kameda Bosai, who was an accomplished Confucian scholar and poet, approached painting as an integral part of a life devoted to cultural refinement and self-cultivation. With the support of patrons, Bosai traveled extensively around Japan after 1790, often coming together with likeminded friends to talk, drink wine, and exchange impromptu poetry verses and paintings executed during the gatherings.

Unusual among Bosai’s landscapes for its ordered structure and understatement, this work features at the lower right a steep waterfall dissolving into mist that is set into an asymmetrical composition of well-defined rocks, trees, and houses with hazy mountains in the distance—all resonant features of Chinese painting of the Yuan dynasty (1271—1368) that Bosai greatly admired. Normally, Bosai assumed a more spontaneous approach to the subject, especially when he was inspired to pick up the brush after an evening spent drinking with fellow poets and amateur artists.

Yet, in spite of the more subdued approach Bosai assumed in this scroll, its imagery conveys his inner vision of nature. Bosai often commented that he followed no prescribed method when undertaking a painting, but rather, depicted the landscape of his heart.