Green Maple and Waterfall

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Artist: Maruyama Okyo/Minagawa Kien
Number of components: 1
Format and materials: Color on paper
Dimensions (in cm): L. 178.0, W. 91.9
Date of production: Edo period 18th century 1787

Taller than the average person, this painting depicts the vigorous vertical lines of a waterfall splashing into the pool below. The thundering noise of the stream contrasts with the stillness of the black rock as the water washes over it. A branch of young maple cuts across the upper area lending the painting the fresh color of early summer. This is in the style of Maruyama Ōkyo, a leading painter in Kyoto in the mid-Edo period, whose work features a simple realism that emphasizes drawing from nature. Ōkyo painted this work in the eleventh lunar month in the year he turned 55. The poem inscribed on the right of the screen is by Minagawa Kien, a Confucian scholar and close friend of Ōkyo's.

Notable Works

Green Maple and Waterfall

SUNTORY MUSEUM of ART