Landscape with pavilions, one of a pair

The theme of a mist-filled landscape offered ink painters a challenge: how to represent a vapor that hides solid forms. In the right-hand screen of this pair (B60D50+ and B60D51+), cloaked travelers ride past the wall of a temple compound. Pale, soft-edged ink washes surround these details to suggest mist swirling through the air and obscuring the path forward. At left, mist envelops a boat drifting on open water, veils distant mountains, and rises from the base of a cascade plunging from the shore.

The painter, Kaiho Yusho, was born to a samurai family in Omi province. After his father was killed in battle, he was entrusted to the monks of the Zen temple Tofukuji in Kyoto. Later in life he received artistic training from a member of the Kano school and established his own lineage of followers using the Kaiho name.