2-736-255 - Heritage Art/Heritage Images

Old Pine Tree, late 1530s. Here the natural appearance of a gnarled and vine-entangled pine has been transformed into a rhythmic abstraction of brushstrokes and ink tonalities, with unifying opposites—opening and closing, rising and falling—that provide the design across the horizontal scroll. The artist's inscription reads: "The force of change beyond restraint; / The dragon's whiskers are likened to a forest of spears."