Fan - Landscape with Horse and Bridge

Discussion

FROM THE BARNES FOUNDATION’S CATALOG

The pleats on Fan—Landscape with Horse and Bridge signal that it was part of a functional folding fan, attached to wooden or ivory supports. An inscription by the painter (at the top) notes that he composed the landscape in the Spring Mountain Wood Cottage for a person named Hayashi. Could Hayashi, or the artist, be one of the figures crossing the bridge, walking among the gnarled pines, or standing at the windows and doors of the cottages tucked between the mountains? For Japanese spectators, the scene may have evoked the aesthetic experiences of yugen (the sense of the world's unfathomability) or mono no aware (the pathos of transience).

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