The Cleveland Museum of Art

Collection Online as of June 2, 2023

Watching a Waterfall

滝見図

1790

Tani Bunchō 谷文晁

(Japanese, 1763–1841)

Japan, Edo period

(1615-1868)

Hanging scroll; ink and color on silk

Image: 112.5 x 51.1 cm (44 5/16 x 20 1/8 in.); Overall: 214 x 54.5 cm (84 1/4 x 21 7/16 in.)

John L. Severance Fund 1972.16

Location

not on view

Description

Artist Tani Bunchō painted this lush blue-green image in a mountain pavilion during wintertime. He inscribed it with two lines of a poem reading: “the stone cliff of layered rocks is extremely high. Waterfalls tumbling from the skies reverberate in the clouds.” The scholarly figure and attendant carrying his zither set the location among the majestically soaring mountains of China.

Provenance
?-1972
(Shogoro Yabumoto, Amagasaki, Hyōgo Prefecture, Japan, ?-1972, sold to the Cleveland Museum of Art)
1972-
The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH, 1972-present
Citations
Sŏn, Sŭng-hye. The Lure of Painted Poetry: Japanese and Korean Art. Cleveland, OH: Cleveland Museum of Art, 2011. Reproduced: cat. no. 20
Exhibition history

Year in Review: 1972. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (February 27-March 18, 1973).

The Lure of Painted Poetry: Cross-cultural Text and Image in Korean and Japanese Art. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (April 15-August 21, 2011).

Japanese art rotation. The Cleveland Museum of Art (organizer) (August 19, 2019-January 5, 2020).

Source URL: https://www.clevelandart.org/art/1972.16