2-725-851 - Heritage Art/Heritage Images

Chinese Landscape, 1500s. This pair of byobu (folding screens) bears neither signature or seals that reveal its authorship. Many such paintings were executed in Japan in the 16th-century painting studios that provided these works on commission for the country’s upper-class patrons. Paintings were ordered according to subject matter, preferred painting style, format, size, and materials. As is evident here, paper rather than silk or gold predominated as the ground for the painted imagery. Because of their size, byobu cost more than hanging scrolls, albums, or handscrolls. The talents of skilled carpenters, metalwork and lacquer craftsmen, and mounting preparators were coordinated to provide the folding screen structure to which the painting was adhered. These byobu served as part of the interior furnishings of a Japanese residence, temple, or government building. There they functioned as interior decor, space dividers, props for secular or religious ceremonies, or even as attractive "maps" of famous sites, both imagined and real. Here an imaginary Chinese landscape of towering mountain peaks, vast expanses of water, and deep, distant panoramas includes many activities, an assortment of buildings and seasonal and temporal references.