Mount Hōrai (Penglai)

Mt. Hōrai is the Japanese name for the mythical Chinese Mt. Penglai, home to Tao immortals, who were believed to possess an elixir for eternal life. Paintings of Mt. Hōrai give form to the human aspiration to live a long life. Looking at the building, one at a desk and the other looking outwards, we can see two figures. Shunkyo (1872–1933) painted this magnificent landscape towards the end of his life. It well demonstrates his technical mastery. For example, controlling the shading of the ink to smoothly transition from the foreground to middle ground, and on to the distant landscape, he exploited the width of his picture of a subject that is usually shown tall and narrow. He left areas unpainted to express the mist obscuring the foreground and wreathing its way into the distance. In this way, he brilliantly exploited the color of the base paper. Shunkyo was born in Zeze (now in Otsu City), Shiga Prefecture. At the age of 13, he studied under Nomura Bunkyo in Kyoto. He was known for his great skill, mainly in landscape painting, and was ranked alongside Takeuchi Seihō as one of the great masters of the art world in Kyoto. ‘Rokasensui-sō,’ stamped in the upper right corner of this work, refers to the studio residence he built in Zeze in 1921. It is now open to the public.