Artwork Page for Snails

Details / Information for Snails

Snails

カタツムリ図

c. 1788–89

Nagasawa Rosetsu 長澤蘆雪

(Japanese, 1754–1799)
Culture
Japan, Edo period (1615–1868)
Medium
Hanging scroll; ink, color, and metallic pigments on paper
Measurements
Image: 114.3 x 40.6 cm (45 x 16 in.); Overall: 200.7 x 54 cm (79 x 21 1/4 in.)
Credit Line
John L. Severance Fund 1998.5
Public Domain
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Location
Not on view
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Did You Know?

Rosetsu was an independent painter active in Kyoto, Japan's cultural capital, known for his visual wit and superb range of technical skills.

Description

In this work, Nagasawa Rosetsu carefully described two snails in a manner known as “earth painting” (doro-e), building up colors mixed with crushed white shells in emulation of the thick brushstrokes of oil paint seen in European painting. A silvery metallic pigment indicates the snails’ trails, glistening along an earthen wall. Notably, one trail has no snail, leaving the viewer to guess why.
A hanging scroll depicts two snails climbing up a solid, dark-brown background, one on the upper-center left and the other lower-center right. They have streaky blue bodies and circular, pink-brown spiral shells speckled with brown. Silver slime trails streak down below them, a slime trail without a snail in the upper right. Gold text ending in a singular red character runs in a column on the lower right.

Snails

c. 1788–89

Nagasawa Rosetsu

(Japanese, 1754–1799)
Japan, Edo period (1615–1868)

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