Lakeside Retreatlate 1400s–early 1500s · Study 2015.514

Context from the museum

This scroll makes clear the rich visual diversity of ink painting outside metropolitan Kyoto. These Kanto region paintings are generous in size, as well as in their visions of imagined foreign scenery. They are similarly composed: foreground expanses of water give way to clouds and bands of mist in middle distance, concealing the bases of the towering peaks, marking the transition in compositional space in both vertical and far distances. These mountain forms dominate the landscape vision as they echo and fill the narrow confines of this traditional hanging scroll format of the Muromachi era. A particular allure of this painting lies precisely in its classical setting highlighted with assertive tonal values in ink washes, dotting strokes, and dotting clusters with the more rustic-but in the Japanese view "natural"-elements of bamboo groves, brushwood fences, grass-roofed huts, and gentle, lowland streams nearby. These are traits linked to 15th-century Korean suibokuga (ink paintings) favored by the many clerics of 15th-century Kyoto and Kamakura. The artist rendered the subject through the filter of 15th-century Korean painting rather than classical Chinese painting. He may even have been a Korean monk-painter resident in one of Kyoto's Zen temples, as many were in the 15th century.

Museum description reproduced from its CC0 open-access record. Read the original catalog entry.

Read the dimensions before the image

The selected overall measurement for Lakeside Retreat is 43.4 cm wide and 118.8 cm high, equivalent to approximately 17.1 × 46.8 inches. Dividing width by height gives a format ratio of 0.37:1. The rectangular bounding area is 0.52 square meters; it describes the measured footprint, not the amount of paint or the monetary value.

On an illustrative 300 cm wall, the recorded width occupies 14.5% of the span before adding a frame. A centered placement leaves approximately 128.3 cm on each side before adding a frame. These are calculations by Physical Art For Crypto using museum measurements. They are not the museum’s display recommendations.

Questions to bring to your own collection

With Lakeside Retreat in view, identify one feature you can point to, then distinguish what the museum records from your personal response. Keep its medium, hanging scroll, ink and color on silk, in your notes when comparing contemporary works.

• Which part of this vertical composition catches your eye first?
• Would a 43.4 cm width still suit the space after allowing for furniture and a frame?
• What surface detail would you need to see in person or in a close photograph?