National Treasures & Important Cultural Properties
of National Institutes for Cultural Heritage, Japan

This iconic ink painting depicts a “scholarly study” in the mountains, a popular subject among Zen priests in the early Muromachi period (1392–1573). The first of the three poems inscribed at the top of the painting begins with a four-character phrase that can be literally translated as “hue of the water, light on the peaks,” which has been used as the common title of the painting. The work depicts a small, simple hut set in the quiet of nature, far from the bustle of urban life. Here, one can enjoy the literati’s ideal of absorbing oneself in study. In reality, however, the Zen priests of the period lived in temples in the middle of the city. When a priest built a study in an urban temple, he painted a celebratory image of a scholarly study far removed from this reality with the name of the study as the title. Above this painting, his fellow priests brushed poems befitting the scene depicted. Such hanging scrolls combining painting and poetry in this manner are called shigajiku—literally, “poem-painting scrolls.” While shigajiku were created primarily during the Ōei (1394–1428) and Eikyō (1429–1441) eras, the date on the last poem inscribed here indicates that it was done slightly later—around Bun’an 2 (1445), suggesting this work represents the genre in its more mature form. The artist’s mastery of landscape painting, however, should not be overlooked. A representative ink painting of the same genre from the earlier Ōei era is the painting in Konchi-in Temple entitled Cottage by a Mountain Stream , thought to date to Ōei 20 (1413). In this work, the scholarly study—in the center of the painting—occupies most of the spatial composition, and the surrounding natural landscapes in the foreground and background are flat, symbol-like representations that fail to produce an expansive sense of depth. In contrast, Shūbun (dates unknown) produced a work in the style of grand landscapes. It does not position the scholarly retreat as the dominant element. The three pine trees in the center are the main motif, and the study is painted almost as an afterthought in the shadow of a rocky ledge. The shore spreads out in the middle ground as lofty peaks tower in the distance. At the same time, the relationships between the various elements in this work lack cohesion and the expressions of three-dimensional space are not particularly logical. Those developments were to be achieved by Sesshū (1420–1506) in the next generation of painters. However, the ambiguities of this work may best be explained as hallmarks of the “scholarly study” genre, in which the goal was to depict an imaginary location far removed from everyday realities. In this sense, the painting is an excellent example of the art produced within the cultural sphere of Zen Buddhism, which shunned the worldly realm.