2-725-852 - Heritage Art/Heritage Images

Chinese Literatus in an Autumn Landscape, late 1400s. In this painting, Sesshu Toyo’s disciple Soen depicts a Chinese scholar-official astride a donkey with his attendant behind. Framing their passage on the right side of the scene are two bare willows, and on the left, geese in flight, the cries of which capture the pair’s attention. These elements suggest that the season is late autumn. Soen, who famously received Sesshu’s 1495 Splashed-ink Landscape as a certificate of his success as a pupil, studied with the master in Suo, presentday Yamaguchi, after which he returned to his native province in the Kanto region.