Emperor Yao Visiting Yu Chonghua

mid- to late 1600s

Kusumi Morikage 久隅守景

(Japanese, active c. 1620–1690)

Culture

Japan, Edo period (1615–1868)

Medium

One of a pair of six-panel folding screens, ink, slight color, and gold on paper

Measurements

Image: 131.9 x 348 cm (51 15/16 x 137 in.); Including mounting: 147.3 x 363.7 cm (58 x 143 3/16 in.)

Credit Line

John L. Severance Fund 1968.105

You can copy, modify, and distribute this work, all without asking permission. Learn more about CMA's Open Access Initiative.

Location

Not on view

Did You Know?

The emperor's two-wheeled carriage sits in front of a thatched-roof farmhouse.

Description

One of a pair, this screen shows a section of the narrative of how the Chinese Emperor Yao (about 2356–2255 BC) selected his successor, Yu Chonghua (about 2294– 2184 BC), who would become Emperor Shun. The artist who painted this screen, Kusumi Morikage, trained with Kano Tan’yō (1602–1647), painter-in-residence to Japan’s shogun, the country’s ruler, and was one of his four top students. Despite the conservative subject matter, Morikage’s distinctive sensibility shines through in his playful treatment of the gray and white elephants in the far left panel of the composition. According to legend, Chonghua was so virtuous that in the spring, elephants bounded down from the mountains to help him till the soil with their tusks.