2-725-857 - Heritage Art/Heritage Images

Chinese Servant Walking in the Rain, 1500s. Attributed to the artist Gakuo, this painting has a spurious seal of the influential Shokokuji temple monk-painter Tensho Shubun (died about 1444-50), with whom he is said to have trained. Gakuo may have hailed from Ise in present-day Wakayama prefecture, an area south of Kyoto in the Kansai region. Although not much is known about his life, inscriptions on some of his paintings indicate strong ties with eminent monks in Kyoto’s major Zen temples.