Gazing at a Waterfall
Yamanaka Shinten'ō
Description
Yamanaka Shinten’ō 山中信天翁
Japan, 1822–1885
Gazing at a Waterfall
Meiji era (1868–1912)
19th century
Hanging scroll, ink on silk
Museum purchase made possible by a gift from
Helmut Stern, 1985/2.21
In this painting, a pair of travelers gaze out at a waterfall descending
from the peak of a steep mountain. While their identities are
unknown, it is likely that they are modeled on an idealized type: the
scholar-painter of Chinese literati (amateur scholar-artist) painting,
whose lifestyle the Japanese bunjinga 文人画—a loose affiliation of
artists known for their rejection of officially recognized painting
schools—sought to emulate. As theirs was a life of contemplation,
lived in remote seclusion, bunjinga painters were less interested in
depicting real places than in evoking an idealized landscape beyond
the reach of the capital and its social intrigues. Positioning the
two figures in front of the vertiginous mountain emphasizes their
humbling human scale, while the use of negative space to convey the
illusion of an enveloping mist rising from the base of the waterfall
amplifies their seclusion from the world.
(Japanese Gallery Rotation, Summer 2025)
Subject Matter:
This is a natural scene of a traveler enjoying a view with a couple of lines of poetry on the upper right. Waterfalls and mountains are commonly depicted in Japanese paintings. The artist, Yamanaka Shinten'o was a skilled painter, poet, calligrapher, and scholar. The poetic words on his painting are most likely his own. Classified as Nanga painting, Yamanaka's work takes much inspiration from Chinese landscapes.
Physical Description:
On this hanging scroll are a mountain, a figure, and a waterfall. One sharp peak of a mountain takes up more than half of the painting which has what appears to be waterfalls coming down the sides. The figure placed in the middle of the painting faces the mountain in the background with two pieces of luggage beside them on the right. They sit on a trail that has a waterfall flowing behind them. To the left is a rock overhang/outcropping that has a structure with a roof. The painting is framed on the bottom edge with leaves and trees coming from the right side. To the upper right corner is an inscription of three lines in black. To the upper right corner of the writing is a red stamp. The black writing is also followed on the left side with two red stamps as well.
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